Lilya Moroccan Lounge & Bar introduces Hong Kong diners to little trays of joy

Dining Concepts’ Lilya Moroccan Lounge & Bar is inspired by Marrakech, and decorated accordingly, but its loud music is more suited to groups. We started with fancy cocktails: Majorelle (HK$125) and Ali Baba (HK$130). The Majorelle is a pretty blend of napue gin, cardamom syrup, basil, fresh apple juice, citrus and smoking flowers - and it tastes as sweet as it looks. The Ali Baba is composed of house-infused Jack Daniels popcorn caramelised with home-made peach mix. The popcorn threw us off, but it was enjoyable overall.

Then we had two Moroccan briouats: the king prawn and lobster marinated in Me Charmel sauce (HK$148) and the kefta beef and lamb meatballs with pine nuts and khlii (Moroccan preserved meat, HK$138). Both were like little trays of joy, featuring juicy meat wrapped up in crunchy skin, and a good start to the night. Our main of lamb shoulder (HK$168) came marinated in ras el hanout with salted butter juice and on a bed of broccoli purée. The lamb was soft and chewy. The next main, sea bass (HK$178), was cooked in tajine, or an earthenware pot, Agadir style. The sea bass was soft, and the cooked orange and green carrots that accompanied it were juicy. For dessert we had sweet pastilla (HK$68), which came as layers of crispy pastry sheets and were accompanied by honey and lime pesto. It was not sweet, but the creamy texture mixed with the crunchiness of the pastry wafers was interesting. The platter of Moroccan almond pastries (HK$68) was a curious mix.

We ended the night with two refreshing choices: a Medina (HK$120), a house-infused jasmine tea, gin, grapefruit, mint, rose syrup and tonic water; and Zwinzwin (HK$100) a coconut water-based mocktail with passion fruit purée, pineapple juice and dragon fruit.

LILYA Moroccan