Where to eat ALGERIA 🇩🇿 Yverdon-les-Bains: La Maison
On the Friday night we visited, a long banquet table for a wedding party took up most of the indoor section of the restaurant, a strong indicator that the food was something to celebrate.
La Maison, Yverdon-les-Bains
Rue de la Plaine 84
What we ordered: For two persons: homemade oriental “bricks” (Chinese American-style eggroll or rectangular Asian fried wanton) stuffed with minced meat (two per person), one traditional couscous, one couscous royale, and to drink: one liter of water, two Aperol spritz, one 50cl bottle of white wine, an espresso and two complimentary mint teas.
Cost: 146.50 CHF / €153 / $165
La Maison might seem unassuming. It is located on the outskirts of the center of a working-class town, across from a Mazda dealership. Yverdon-les-Bains is most notable for being the place where the national railway network repairs its trains carriages.
On the Friday night we visited, a long banquet table for a wedding party took up most of the indoor section of the restaurant, a strong indicator that the food was something to celebrate. Not too long after we sat down on the front patio, the bride and groom walked in and more relatives followed.
We ordered as a starter, a dish called an oriental “brick,” a sort of Chinese American eggroll-like concoction but with Middle Eastern flavors. It had the right mix of flavors: grease without being too greasy, salty but also subtle, and parsley to punctuate the meats, all served with a slice of lemon on a bed of lettuce. Tabbouleh in a fried wanton is perhaps the simplest way to describe the appetizer to the unacquainted. It was a nice palette opener for the main draw: couscous, Algeria’s national dish.
The couscous was sublime. Many recipes for Algerian couscous call for the meat to be stewed with the vegetables and then placed on top of a bed of steamed couscous. La Maison opted instead to serve the stewed vegetables, which were soft and flavorful and carefully arranged like rays of sun, yet braise the meat to adorn the couscous and vegetable stew. We took note. The chicken was tender and fell off the bone. The couscous royale additionally came with bone-in veal and merguez.
At the end of the meal, our very friendly francophone waitress brought traditional mint tea in decorative glasses, a nice touch to conclude an extremely wonderful dinner.
How to get to Algeria from Switzerland:
Over land and sea, it is possible to get to Algeria by driving through France and Spain, and catching a ferry from Almería, Spain to Ghazaouet, Algeria before continuing along Algeria’s A1 highway, which runs inland near the coast through Oran and to Algiers. The entire journey from Bern to Algiers by land and sea runs approximately 30 hours.
From Geneva, Air Algérie offers direct flights to Algiers. Currently there are no nonstop flights from Zürich to Algiers. Swiss Air has codeshare flights through the Star Alliance network with Lufthansa from both Geneva and Zürich. Additionally, Air France, Iberia, Ita Airways, Tunisair and Turkish Airlines offer connections to Algiers depending on dates and route.
How many Algerians are in Switzerland: 4,000
Distance between Bern and Algiers: 2,513 kilometers
Distance from La Maison to Algiers: 2,442 kilometers
Learn how to make Algeria's national dish, couscous (royale-style), and about its origins.
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