Cheap Eats in Beni Mellal — Best Budget Food in the Tadla

The cheapest good meal in Beni Mellal is a bowl of bissara — thick fava-bean purée finished with the region's own olive oil, cumin and paprika — eaten with fresh bread at a market hole-in-the-wall for around 10-15 MAD. Harira, the tomato-lentil-chickpea soup, is similarly cheap and filling. These are the everyday fuels of the town, freshest in the morning and at midday, and generous with the local oil.

For a bigger fill, follow the farmers, traders and market workers to the small canteens (gargotes) around the medina and central market. A plate of the day — tagine, lentils, beans, or kefta with an egg — with bread and salad usually costs 30-45 MAD, and the vegetables come from the surrounding plain, so they are fresh and abundant. Sandwich counters stuff half-baguettes with maakouda, kefta, merguez, chips and salad for 20-35 MAD.

The Tadla plain makes fruit, vegetables and olives cheap and plentiful here, so market produce, seasonal fruit — especially the region's oranges — and fresh juice stretch a budget a long way. Fresh bread from a local bakery, dipped in new olive oil or eaten with olives and cheese, is a near-free meal in itself and a taste of what the region does best.

To eat cheaply and well, stick to the soup stalls, sandwich counters and canteens where locals eat, buy fruit and olives from the market, agree prices before ordering, and pay in small notes. In this farming town, the land's abundance means eating cheaply also means eating fresh.