I've been hearing good things about the Moroccan Soup Bar for quite some time now. It is also rated 2nd best restaurant in Melbourne on Urbanspoon, so that must mean something! But just because it might be the 2nd most popular restaurant doesn't mean it's going to be overpriced and in a pretentious environment. Writing this now I realised I forgot to take pictures of the actual restaurant, but you can find some here.

I made a booking 2 weeks in advance, and the only time they could fit in a table of six was at 8:30pm. So I took it, no questions asked! We arrived to find our table with a napkin detailing it was booked for Michele @ 8.30pm, for 6pm. A cute idea we all thought.

Warm minted syrupy water was delivered by our waitress and we were then told there was no menu, it was a spoken menu. She explained it was all vegetarian and we could have the banquet for $20 each which consisted of some dips, mains and sweets. We all agreed this was the way to go and didn't bother to hear the rest of the menu. She confirmed if there were any allergies then went off to grab our entree of dips.

The dips were lovely, with carrots, potatoes, capsicum, broccoli and eggplant as well. Such a nice spread to get the night going.

We were soon ploughing our way through 6 dishes.
We didn't ask what they were, and our waitress didn't explain what they were either, but it didn't matter because it was all really really good.

This was by far the group favorite. Looks like a mess but it was so interesting and amazing. Chickpeas, broken up toasted flat bread, something like a tzatiki kind of dip, all mixed together. It had a rather smokey flavour, but the dip was rather refreshing. So many interesting flavours, all working well together. I'd love to try and recreate this one at home one day.

This one had a yoghurt type sauce with eggplant and a lovely rice. Also very refreshing and delicious.

This one was rice with beans, as you can see! It was also nice, not so much refreshing but very tasty and filling.

This one was rice with vegetables in a humus type sauce. Also really good, seriously there was nothing that wasn't good!

Finally 2 bowls of vegetables with cous cous, soooo nice.

Then it was time for sweets. We received what must have been like a Moroccan coffee, poured freshly at our table by a waitress. We also finished up with a biscuit with pistachio pieces and a date filling. They went really well together, the sweetness of the biscuit and the bitterness of the coffee.

So much food for what seemed like so little money. I would go back in a heartbeat. I didn't miss meat at all, but I was wondering if we were going to be trying soup at the Moroccan Soup Bar.
Lots of people walk in with empty tupperware containers and walk out with full tupperware containers. A nice little idea for takeaway. Definitely looking forward to going back soon!