Tajine Xpress (http://tajinexpress.com/) is a fast-casual Moroccan restaurant that opened earlier this year on Goldenrod Road on the east side of Orlando, south of East Colonial Drive. It didn’t seem like the most propitious location until I noticed it is close to a mosque with a school, as well as a Middle Eastern grocery store and a Muslim clothing store. It should do really well in that area, which is luckily close to my job as well.
By fast-casual, I mean you order at the front counter, then sit down and wait for it. When I went with a work colleague for lunch a month or so ago, it wasn’t busy, and a nice lady walked our food out to our table. But there is also a pickup area right in the corner of the glass section below. As a double-Gator, I appreciated the orange and blue décor, and I really liked the rich royal blue color of the walls. 
The chairs are large and made of metal. They don’t fit terribly well under the tables, so I found myself literally on the edge of my seat as a whole new, unfamiliar regional cuisine presented itself to us. My colleague has eaten at the Moroccan restaurant at Epcot, but for me, it was completely new. I was excited!
She is vegetarian, so she ordered the Moroccan salad ($3.98), with diced tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and herbs and spices dressed in olive oil and herbs.
She also got zaalouk ($3.98), a chilled eggplant and tomato salad. She seemed to really like both of those dishes.
It came with round bread that was crusty on the outside and softer on the inside. It wasn’t anything like pita bread, and we both agreed it didn’t have a lot of flavor. I imagined it would have been better if she dipped pieces of it in those two salads.
We went on a Friday, so Tajine Xpress was offering its weekend-only couscous platters. I love lamb and couscous, so I couldn’t resist ordering the lamb couscous ($15.98). It arrived on a platter that was absolutely HUGE, with some soft, tender vegetables: potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and a squash I wasn’t familiar with. My research shows it might have been an acorn or kabocha squash, with the green rind and tender orange flesh inside.
Underneath the mystery squash, the lamb had been stewed until it was fork-tender, and they left some bones in there to impart even more flavor. It was salty and oniony and so delicious. I wish there had been a little more of the lamb atop the tender, al dente couscous, but you’ll never catch The Saboscrivner wishing a dish had less meat.
Tajine Xpress makes two kinds of spring rolls called briwates — beef and seafood — and you get two per order. OR, you can be like me and order the briwates sampler platter, which gives you one beef briwat and one seafood briwat ($9.98). They were served with harissa, the spicy sauce that explains it all. The briwates looked and smelled so good, but they were both stuffed with mushrooms, my old enemy, a tasty ingredient that chefs love to cook with, but I just cannot eat. 
Undeterred, I cut these open, picked out all the mushrooms, and ate whatever was left, which was not my best idea ever. It ended up being a very long afternoon at work. But you have to understand, my vegetarian co-worker couldn’t eat them, and I can’t stand to waste food. I definitely won’t order these again because of the mushrooms, but you normal, non-afflicted people reading this will probably like the briwates.
It took me a while to return, but I had really wanted to try the beef with prunes tajine ($12.98), because I love savory and sweet flavors together. I went for lunch today and ordered it to go, so it came in a round cardboard tray with separate compartments for the huge chunks of tender braised beef topped with slivers of toasted almonds, my side order of rice pilaf (mixed with tiny bits of vermicelli and topped with peas and diced carrots), and only two prunes, sticky-sweet and covered with sesame seeds.
My wife instinctively made a face when I told her I ordered beef with prunes, but I showed her the two prunes were separated in the to-go container and offered her one. Even she liked it, but I was a little sad we each only got a single prune. I definitely would have liked more prunes, and it would have been interesting to taste them swimming in the meat juices. I assumed they would be cooked and served together, but what do I know? The beef had a lot of flavor and was so tender, I didn’t even need a knife to cut it. A couple of the pieces had thick bones attached with some tender fat, like one of my favorite meats to eat, oxtails. But all the meat easily pulled right off the smooth bones, which is one of the joys of braising, stewing, and slow-cooking. The rice was a little bland, so I mixed all of it into the juices the beef came with, although I would have liked more of that rich, flavorful liquid too.
Today has been a dark, dreary, drizzly day, which is a perfect day for soup. At the last minute, I also ordered the harira soup, with tomatoes, onions, lentils, chickpeas, vermicelli, and beef ($3.98). It was a tasty twist on a tomato-based vegetable beef soup, as I expected.
The harira came with another round piece of bread, which I made sure to dip in the soup to add some flavor and soften it up. But I already consumed some carbs from the rice, so I realized I’m just not into this bread and didn’t have to eat all of it.
The menu at Tajine Xpress isn’t huge, but now I’ve covered the two dishes that sounded the best to me: the lamb couscous (available Friday through Sunday only) and the beef with prunes tajine. I would recommend both of those for sure. As I said, I wish you got more meat with both of dishes, especially because the meats are so good. I don’t love that round bread, and I’m wondering if the other side order options of fries and beans would be better than the rice I got today. I think they would have to be. I just figured fries would be cold by the time I got them home, but if you go and try the fries, let me know how they were!
The Saboscrivner 