Spice Road: The "Tony's Town Square" of Epcot

ScubaCat

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 12, 2008
I've been reading some fairly good things about Spice Road Table for a while now. The menu has some interesting options and the location looks lovely, so I've been wanting to try it for a while now. We finally booked it and went for dinner last week. Since it was still 95 degrees when our 5:45pm reservation rolled around, we opted to eat inside despite the overwhelming almost-rotten fish smell we were greeted with.

Before getting to the food, if you do decide to try this place I suggest either wearing gloves or making every effort not to touch the table. The metal tables (brass?) will rub off on your hands and your hands will smell like rust. I thought I just needed to wash my hands until I realized I already HAD washed them and had made the mistake of touching the table again. My bad there. Anyhow, let's get to the meat and potatoes, if you will.

We decided on the Mixed Grill Skewers. DW chose them right away. I was leaning towards the NY Strip Steak, but the waiter convinced me to go with the skewers for a "more authentic experience". Fair enough, it was more of a variety. This entree is "Marinated Beef and Chicken with French Green Beans, Toasted Almonds, and Rosemary Potatoes". It sounded like a good combination. I get some good beef and chicken with Mediterranean seasoning that I don't experience very often. And $31 isn't too bad for an Epcot entree for beef AND chicken. I knew it wouldn't be a big portion at that price point, but I'm going for quality here over quantity. There's always F&W booths if I want a snack later.

A solid 30 minutes after ordering (a total of 3 other tables had people seated), we were presented with our authentic Moroccan entrees. Let's start with the skewers. One was 4 white cubes with a little curry pepper on them. I'm sure they started as a form of chicken, but they were overcooked to something better used in construction. I spit out my first bite (that I had to cut off with a knife) and DW saw me and didn't even attempt it. We flagged the waiter and asked for another beef skewer instead, which he did promptly bring us in about 5 minutes. As for the beef, it was low grade stew meat. Some pieces were tougher than others, some were mostly gristle and thus inedible, and some were tolerable enough to chew and swallow. This was beneath what Golden Corral would use. The small mound of french style green beans was ok, but obviously just heated out of a bag..... which brings us to the "rosemary potatoes": They were Alexia-brand oven fries. We make them at home from time to time, and now I've had them in Epcot. The waiter brought us a bowl of ketchup packets (nice touch) for the fries -- sorry, "rosemary potatoes" -- but it doubled as an accessory to the edible part of the steak as well. So overall, for $30.99 plus tax and tip, a poor Moroccan person is hired to run to Publix, dumpster dive for the lowest grade of stew meat and chicken, and buy a few bags of frozen french cut green beans and Alexia oven fries. Then you come in for a nice dinner, someone else hangs out for 30 minutes, nukes it all, and throws it on a plate for you.

Welcome to the Spice Road table. I really thought Tony's Town Square was literally the worst restaurant I'd ever been to in my entire life, but I may have to try it again so I can do a more fair comparison.

In closing, if you'd like to make your own authentic Moroccan rosemary potatoes, look for this in your grocer's freezer section:

https://www.alexiafoods.com/chef-inspired/oven-fries-olive-oil-rosemary-and-garlic
 
Wow--maybe things have changed in the last couple of years--our experience at Spice Road Table was 180 degrees from yours. We had the chicken (not the skewered chicken) and it was fabulous. Spice Road was easily one of the best meals of our trip. Don't recall the issue with the tables either.
 
OP, my experience last year was very much like yours. We actually have a lot of food in my area that is similar and many of these places are walk up counter service with fantastic food. Spice Road was a huge disappointment for the exact reasons. You've refreshed my memory. I also felt the meat quality was inferior.
 


I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, but I did enjoy your humorous review!

We had a last minute reservation there at Epcot in July. I booked it because I was dead on my feet and still wanted to see Illuminations. The food was nothing special, but I did enjoy the view of the fireworks. We split the mix grill skewers and the mediterranean vegetable platter. I'd probably stick to the small plates if there ever is a next time.
 
I've certainly had good and bad experiences at the same disney restaurant in the past, so I don't intend to diminish the fact that others had a good meal there. Sometimes owners, managers, etc. change, sometimes budgets change, etc. It just shocks me that something of such poor quality is continually allowed to be served at some Disney restaurants. I accept the big markup being that it's a resort restaurant, but I also expect a certain minimum baseline of quality. I mention Tony's Town Square because it's sadly similar in quality most of the time. At the prices they charge, there's just no fathomable excuse for being 1000% worse than the olive garden on Vineland Rd. It shows a lack of respect for your customers (and humanity in general) when profit supersedes edible food. Spice Road could literally have been a re-branded Longhorn and I would have had a far better experience.

The fish rots from the head down, and this problem of seriously substandard dining has persisted long enough that I accept it as what upper management wants. It has seriously diminished my enjoyment of disney vacations because we used to look forward to dining out, something we try to avoid at home other than once in a while (in an effort to eat healthy, mainly). Now the only choices are signature restaurants or going off property -- or Swan & Dolphin, which have good restaurants thanks to being Marriotts. Heck, there's another example: Every single thing on the menu at The Fountain at the Dolphin is just massively better than Beaches & Cream. How hard is it to make a good hamburger on the grill? I simply don't get it. For $17, it should be at LEAST "good", not mediocre.

The fact is, Disney CAN and SHOULD do better.
 
OP, my experience last year was very much like yours. We actually have a lot of food in my area that is similar and many of these places are walk up counter service with fantastic food. Spice Road was a huge disappointment for the exact reasons. You've refreshed my memory. I also felt the meat quality was inferior.

I used to live in NE Atlanta (Peachtree Corners, specifically) and there were places all over the place in strip malls of varying levels of decay that serve this menu and are of massively superior quality for probably 1/3 the price. Why can't Disney just hire one of those places to run it? Answer is they clearly don't want to spend the money; it's all about profit.
 


That's too bad about your meals. I've been there twice and just did shared appetizers. All of them were very good and the service was friendly and efficient.
 
I’m sorry to hear about your experience. We went to Spice Road Table last year (October) and had a wonderful experience! We went later in the evening for Illuminations viewing. We had a beautiful window table with a great view. We ordered several “small plates” to share and the vegetable platter. Everything came out quickly and was cooked nicely and was delicious. We all agreed it was a highlight of the trip. Hoping to hear they haven’t gone downhill that much in a year....maybe you just caught a bad night or bad server?
 

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