Spice Road Table – Fried Calamari (and hummus of course)

this experience took place on March 23, 2014

Yay! We’re back at table #13, seated at the window and enjoying the view. Our server today is Zineb – this is the first time that we’ve had a female server at Spice Road Table – she’s very friendly, in fact she tells us that they all talk about us (in a good way!). She used to work at Paradiso 37 in Downtown Disney (I think she originally came to the US to work at the Morocco Pavilion through the International Program). She said “I’m so happy to see you today!” Nada stopped by too to say hello and compliment me on the color of my shirt.

the view from “our table”

We started with the hummus and olives. This is such a good choice when you’re hungry and warm from walking around Epcot. It’s light and refreshing, there’s enough complexity in the flavors and textures that it gets your tastebuds started.

garlic hummus, olive salad, tomato hummus (it was very tomato-y) and whole wheat pita with zatar spices

sometimes the garlic hummus has a texture like peanut butter and sometimes it’s more like a soft dip, we love it when there’s ample garlic regardless of the texture

the olive salad is more interesting than you might expect at first glance – the varying ripeness definitely influences the flavor and texture of each olive, the cornichons are rather sour and salty in a way that’s different from the saltiness of the olives

do you see the bit of tomato inside this hummus, oh yum yum yum

That’s it for our starter, next up is Fried Calamari… Nick ordered an Efes Dark (Turkey) and I had a glass of Ksara Blanc de Blanc. My wine had a grassy nose and a grassy taste without food – I think it’s going to go well with the fried calamari. It did! The fat from the fried food and the tartar sauce played nicely with the grassiness of the wine.

this paired very well with the calamari and harissa sauce

the calamari was tender (marinated in milk?) and the breading was crisp (seasoned panko bread crumbs?)

it’s hard to beat Raglan Road’s Calamari but this has a very good flavor and the breading isn’t heavy handed and the calamari is nice and tender

tartar sauce (nice but nothing special) and harissa sauce (we preferred this one

harissa sauce (see all those yummies floating in there?) – the flavors are somewhat similar to the voodoo sauce at Splitsville, but not as fatty or buttery

This is such a good combination – hummus & olives starter and then fried calamari. It’s a combination that we revisited a few times in the spring of 2014.

Also, the service at Spice Road Table is very different than the service that we’ve experienced in Tangerine Cafe or at Restaurant Marrakesh. I don’t know if they chose the most outgoing staff to work here, it seems as if that’s the case. Although sometimes they fall prey to the common malady of standing around and talking with each other (I don’t know how to avoid that these days), they aren’t outright rude and guests aren’t ignored. … We’ve been very pleased with the servers, the hostesses, the bartenders, and the kitchen staff that we’ve interacted with.

Note: this is now the best calamari we’ve had at Disney World; we discovered in May that Raglan Road no longer has their delicious calamari on the menu – we were told that the timing of the calamari didn’t mesh well with the other starters and was causing problems in the kitchen and with service flow… Too bad, that was some damned good calamari.