Aicha

They either blow it out the park or are solidly in the range of meh. The chicken bastille is very good but half is more than enough, a quarter pie would probably do.
I did a lamb tagine with peas, nice presentation but the taste was a bit lackluster. I VERY MUCH preferred the roasted chicken special I had last time.

Lovely clean flavors, some spicy!, and prompt service bolster this unassuming locals’ spot. Simple seating, a first come first serve café atmosphere for only about 25, this place seems authentic and the food is great as is the Moroccan mint tea. I will be back.

Delicious Lamb tagine and Kebabs

Aicha is a solid lunch place that offers Moroccan dishes that are savory and made from fresh ingredients. I have ordered a few dishes here and like how the food is healthy, tasty and light.
I’ve had the Carrots a la charmoula, lentil soup, artichoke salad and lamb couscous. My friend usually gets the kabob or meatball dishes, which are very savory. The rice is very fluffy and flavorful. Good Size lunch portions and the prices are fair.

Been here twice — great casual spot on Polk. The lentils are great. As some others have said the portions are hefty (great value!) so don’t go overboard on the ordering. I’ve tried the fish and lamb tangines and both were great. By the way for the drinkers out there it’s BYOB.

Delicious food for a decent prize. It’s our first time to this place and their food is amazing. I would come back again. Their close on Sunday’s though.

Aicha is a gem. The lunch specials are such a good deal– ~$ 10 for a full entrée, rice, and a soup of the day. The ambience is also really nice, and partially because it’s really not busy at all for the most part, this is the place I come when I want to catch up with old friends. I don’t feel pressured to leave, and also again, it’s just very cheap.
We got the lamb+meatball lunch special, and the chicken lunch special. I really like the tomato based flavor.

Get ready for the ride of your life on Marrakech express! Portions? Out of this woooorlldddd! No seriously the plates are HUGEEEEE! 2 people can eat from one plate. For realz. I’m not lying.
Food? Out of this wooooorld. Wholesome. Delicious. And maybe even nutritious.
Clean baby clean. Freshhh
Drink that mint tea son.
Don’t be a fool… Wanna be cool? This place is one hell of a jewel.
— God bless. One love. Peace out
P. s. Order the lamb shank.

Chilly December evening. I look for food. The minute I step into Aicha, the exotic music warms me up. Its interior filled with tones of yellow adds a layer of warmth.
I order the Lamb Tagine with Green Peas. It comes with bread, but it is needed as the entrée can be enjoyed alone as is. The lamb falls off the bone without resistance. I could eat this everyday. It’s not overly flavorful where you depend on bread to be your lifesaver in balancing out the taste. The Lamb Tagine with Green Peas is like a home-​cooked meal prepared with love.
The other version of lamb tagine comes with prunes and almonds. It is expectedly sweet and crunchy. As delicious it may be, I prefer the lamb with green peas.
Verdict: coming back here again and again to try everything on their menu! Dining at Aicha felt like a mini vacation to Morocco.

Cozy neighborhood spot with cute authentic décor and really comfy seating. Highly recommend the bastillas and chicken tagine!

I really like Moroccan food but haven’t had it since I moved to San Francisco.
My boyfriend and I came here for lunch on a Saturday and Aicha was empty.
We shared the Chicken Bastilla to start.
It was delicious! Sweet and juicy, although the dough was slightly too dry for me.
My boyfriend loved the Chicken Tajine. And it might not look like a lot, but once you’ve gone through all that chicken, you’ve had enough food!
The Merguez Couscous was amazing! I was expecting more sauce/​broth as it is the way I am used to having couscous, but it wasn’t dry at all! The merguez was flavorful, the vegetables were perfectly cooked and the couscous was great.
I will come back to Aicha and bring my friend!

we were greeted warmly as soon as we walked in by a gentleman who had a big smile on his face with a positive attitude. After telling the gentleman it was our first time trying Moroccan food he pointed out numerous dishes that would enhance my Moroccan experience. we started off with a chicken Bastila then continued to have our main courses, a royal kebab plate with couscous, salad and a combination of meats everything had amazing flavor with generous portions. we finished our meals with vanilla flan and Moroccan mint tea. Would highly recommend coming here. Overall experience 5 stars and amazing food, 5 stars

Oh man this place is tasty. Good sized portions for what you pay. The Moroccan tea is yummy. Asians be advised they like their tea sweet so I couldn’t drink too much of it but my boyfriend (from Morocco) gladly polished it off for me and said it could have used more sugar! The chicken bastilla was crazy savory and their bread to soak up all the sauces in was like OMG. We spent $ 56 with tip for two teas, an app and two entrees and had some yummy leftovers for the next day. Highly highly recommend it and thank you to my fellow Unilocaler from Morocco who urged me to try it!

Nice laidback place, good and fast service, the food seemed to have fresh ingredients.
The food itself, though, is so-​so, I’ve had better Moroccan food!
The veggie bastilla filling was somewhat dry and did not have much flavor.
The veggie couscous had large, semi-​grilled veggies on top that did not add to the flavor at all.
The appetizer trio was really good. The best dish I had was the carrot appetizer — very flavorful.
I’m unlikely to go back for the food.

Pretty good. I came here for lunch and it was empty. I never tried Moroccan food but I saw they have kebabs and I friggen love kebabs (like the Persian kind) so I thought I would give it a try. It was about $ 11 for a kefta kebab??? And it came with salad and rice. The rice was a bit hard and the kebab kinda looked like turds, but all in all, great taste. They were a bit dry though. and the meat to rice ratio was way off! Too much meat and too little rice. HAH! I’m complaining about that?
The salad that came with it was great. But it came with beets. I hate beets. They kinda taste like dirt and have this weird consistency. These beets were no different than all those other beets. Next time i would ask them to pick it out. I did like the olives, even though they were a bit too salty.
Oh yea when we sat down for lunch, they gave us the dinner menu.shady.

This place was okay. Food quality of the entrée, cleanliness and dicey service pushed them down to 2 stars. Food alone might have been 3.5.
We ordered the chicken Bastilla as an app, plus the artichoke salad and soup du jour. royal couscous as the entrée and we shared it all.
Apps were the best part. The soup was rich and the spice built up nicely. Bread was good with it.
I liked the salad quite a bit although there was a lettuce stem included I would have preferred omitted. The dressing was a simple vinegrette but the generous amount of olives and cooked veggies made it lovely.
The chicken Bastilla wasn’t something I liked because it was sweet and cinnamon spicy flavored and meaty and a little too sweet for my preference– but my bf loved it and ate almost the whole thing on his own, so clearly this is a matter of preference.
The entrée of royal couscous didn’t seem royal to me. Had little flavor except some of the meats– but most the meats weren’t great. ²⁄₃ of the chicken pieces were tough and dry and looked old. The larger ground meat thing (koftka, I think?) was the best for tenderness and flavor. The reddish sausage was dry and not appealing. The beef pieces were soft but awful cuts of beef so even though they were soft they were still very chewy. Not worth $ 17!!!
Two things stood out– the waiter never came to ask if the food was okay. Or ever again after he put the dishes down. We had to get up and ask for things like an extra napkin. Secondly, gnats were flying around and landing and walking across our food. Gross! I don’t mind flies a bunch but my bf thinks they’re sick and unhygienic and was not happy about them. Also his water glass was dirty.
I’d try someplace else for Moroccan food before coming back here, if ever. This place seems to have a couple good recipes but doesn’t give the food and patrons the attention they need to make a decent meal.

Lovely place with friendly service and tasty food. Ordered the chicken bastilla, lamb tagine with peas, and the royal (mixed meat) couscous.
Had wanted to try the chicken bastilla because of the Unilocal reviews about it, but wasn’t a big fan of it, as it was too sweet for my liking. Lamb tagine was delightful — super tender and came in a flavourful broth. Dish didn’t come out in a tajine though. Couscous was quite nice. I don’t think I am a huge fan of couscous to begin with (I prefer quinoa); but the veggies in it were good. Some of the meat was a bit dry.
All in all, neat little restaurant in this neighbourhood.

Honestly I thought it was a great gem on polk street. This was my first time trying Moroccan food and all I can say is its one of the the softest, juiciest meats I’ve had. Started off with two appetizers the artichoke salad and Chicken Bastille.
The artichoke salad reminded me of a greek salad with the feta cheese, romaine lettuce, light olive oil but they added huge chunks of artichoke on top of it. Delicious and the portion is pretty sizable.
The chicken bastille was one of my favorite dishes here. It comes with grinded up chicken inside, with a crusty, flaky outer wrapping (similar to a spanakopita). Topped off with some powdered sugar. The mixture of savory and sweet added the right amount of kick and flavor.
Ended with the Lamb Tania with green peas. This lamb was perfectly cooked and so soft the meat just fell off the bone. I thought the lamb could have used a little bit more spice to it.
P.S They do not serve alcohol but they let you bring your own alcohol inside and drink it.
Overall decent ambiance, great food, and quick service.

This is a small Moroccan restaurant. The food is good and it has a nice ambiance. I think there are better Moroccan restaurants in San Francisco. However, considering how many Moroccan restaurants there are, this place deserves 4 stars. I tried several items on the menu. The Chicken Bastilla and Lamb Tagine with Prunes & Almonds were very good. The Bastilla was very aromatic. It was warm, flakey, and sweet. It was sweet and savory. It was very filling. The meat very tender. The Lamb Tagine with Prunes was also aromatic. The Lamb shank was tender and soft. The meat was falling of the bone easily. The prunes tasted very good. I did not think it was possible to make a dish that uses prunes that taste this good. Those two dishes are the best. Also, their saffron rice, mint tea, baklava, and the Lamb Couscous were good.
However, I was slightly disappointed by the Royal (meat combo) Kebabs. Royal meat combo consists of a few types of meat (beef, sausage, chicken, ground meat, etc), saffron rice and salad. The salad and rice was good. Most of the pieces of meat were good, but there was one large piece (beef/​lamb??) of meat that was chewy and dry. I had to spit it out. I could not eat it. Other Unilocal reviewers have complained about this.
Customer service was good. Good location. A good place to explore or try out Moroccan cuisine.

I came here last Friday with 3 of my friends and we had a great dinner. We all got the fix meal plan which comes with a starter, entrée and dessert.
I ordered chicken bastilla which was something new to me and it tasted great because it was fresh and hot. As for my entrée, I ordered the lamb tagine with almonds and prunes and it’s basically tender moist meat on a bone with sauce. I enjoyed the taste of the lamb and I think next time if I order that again, I’ll get rice with that. I’m 5’4″ and if I do get that dish again, I’ll probably share it with someone, just remember to get rice on the side with it.
And to finish it off, I got bak lava and my friends ordered a pot of mint tea which kept me warm because for some reason, the place had their door opened and since we were sitting near the front, the cold winds kept blowing in.

We had spent the late afternoon enjoying the sun in Sausalito, but when presented with where to go for dinner, we decided that overpriced mediocre American fare wasn’t appealing, even though street side dining with a view of the bay was tempting. We headed back into the city for Middle Eastern/​Mediterranean cuisine, and after Unilocaling chose Aicha.
Luckily, we were the last patrons to enter before the hour long wait on Saturday night. This is a small cozy, space with a warm and genuine feeling. It’s also BYO! When I come here again, it won’t be with an empty hand. My partner and I were starving, and started off with the highly recommended Moroccan mint tea. It was a nice palate warmer. They pour it the right way and present it in little beautiful silver teapots and tiny glasses. See picture.
I went with the Lamb Tagine. Every chunk of meat was so soft and just as I barely touched it with my fork and knife it would fall onto the plate. The gravy was nice with the fresh home baked bread. I also ordered the side of cinnamon cous cous with raisins and drenched a hefty amount with that onion gravy. My partner ordered the Royal Kebab which is a mix of meats with delicious saffron rice and a side salad. He thoroughly enjoyed it and finished my bread, too.
Food — Though I’m not as familiar with Moroccan cuisine (I’ve only had it once before). This seemed authentic, tasty, and made with love. Definitely not to miss.
Ambiance — Warm and cozy. No rush.
Service — Attentive and friendly. Meals take a bit of time to come out after you’ve ordered.

Delicious!
Tried Aicha on a whim, and was impressed. I went with the $ 23 prix fix meal. You can pick any starter/​appetizer, entrée, and dessert.
I had a really delicious smoked eggplant dish for my starter that was flavorful, tender and melted in my mouth. I went with the kefta kebab plate for entrée. Well seasoned, tender and delicious, came with rice and a salad. For dessert I had the baklava, so yummy. Went ahead and had the mint tea with dessert and was not disappointed.
My husband also did the prix fix, and had the chicken bastilla, which is like a little puff pastry pie with sugar and cinnamon on it. It was amazing, I would definitely recommend getting one of these delicious pies. He also had the royal combo platter which had a nice selection of meats. For dessert he had the flan, and it was pretty good — not to eggy.
All the portions were super generous. Our waitress was attentive and I never lacked for water.
They do not serve alcohol, just fyi. Not a big deal for me, but it might be a deal breaker for you.