As you would expect the area around Agadir has some amazing fish shops. Here in Aourir, we have a few as well as a very busy street-side fish market.

As with all shops and traders here, you find a good one and keep going back, build a good relationship and get the best prices. If you want really cheap fish, sardines mostly but other fish too, go to the street vendors.

The only word of caution is that you need to know what you are looking for, know the prices and expect to pay less than in the shops. Also, you may not get the freshest fish, who knows where it came from and how it’s been stored?

Our preference is to go to one of the main shops, Hakim Fish situated on the road to Imimiki. These guys supply most of the restaurants around here and they have a plentiful supply of high-quality fresh fish. There is a huge selection of fish, prawns, octopus and squid – anything you want really.

Today, I wanted to get a couple of fish for the BBQ and also some fillets for fishcakes or just to pan-fry. Sardines are always a good decision as they are a great lunchtime snack, but normally you would buy them here then go to a small restaurant and get them to cook them for you for a small charge – saves the mess and its also nice to have someone prepare them in a traditional way – one of my favorite lunches.

When you select your fish, you pay for the whole thing, then go around the back of the shop to get the fish cleaned and prepared as you like. These guys are experts, so why try and do it yourself?

We normally manage to get the same guy who speaks pretty good English, tell him what you want and he does it – today, I had two dorad – like sea bream – split along the spine and opened up to grill on the BBQ, and the other fish (no idea what it is called but its part of the tuna family) filleted. Inside this fish, there was some fish roe, so that will be fried too – a delicacy for sure.

The last time I was here, they had a massive tuna – around 100kg which was being cut up – it’s out of season just now but they are going to call me when the next tuna comes in – fresh sushimi or steaks will be amazing.