Spice Road Table – Stuffed Grape Leaves

This experience took place on March 7, 2014

We are on a quest to try every item on the Spice Road Table menu, and today’s entry is the Stuffed Grape Leaves.

I had the Amazigh Red (Morocco) and Nick had the Efes beer (Turkey, 6.1% ABV – available at the Taste of Marrakesh Outdoor Kitchen during the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival).

Assim was our server on this visit, and again, he left the bottle for us to take photos (Thank you!)

As you can see, this is a dark beer and at first we were concerned that Nick wouldn’t care for it, but as it turned out… It was quite good and he ordered it on future visits to Spice Road Table.

This dark beer had lots of chocolate and tobacco notes… YUM!

The grape leaves were topped with a mix of raisins, pistachios, olive oil, and cinnamon.

The Amazigh Red paired well with the components of this dish.

The stuffed grape leaves were Nick’s least favorite on the menu… a bit bland and mushy.

I typically like stuffed grape leaves, these however didn’t have the “pickled” or “vinegar” aspect that I usually like… so in the end, I agreed with Nick that they were bland and mushy. Not something we’re likely to want to have again on our own.

At this point, we realized that whoever is doing the wine pairings at Spice Road Table really knows what he’s doing.

Our biggest recommendation: TRUST THE PAIRINGS…

Then, we met the manager, Abdou (he’s been here since the first wave of Moroccan students came to Epcot in 1984). He told us that he worked for 3.5 years on the pairings and on Spice Road Table, this is his baby. We made sure to tell him how delighted we are with the food and the service at Spice Road Table. (we really hope that there isn’t pressure from the hoi-polloi to dumb down the menu in here and start offering full meals that are bland and boring!).

P.S. Assim told us that the only dessert that is truly Moroccan is the baklava (he says it’s better than the baklava offered inside)

Story time!!! Assim was talking to us about the concept of Spice Road Table. And told us that growing up in Morocco, all the mothers have their own spice blends. They keep them in the cabinet with unclear labels (ha ha ha). He was in his mother’s kitchen at some point and was looking at the spices… “Mother, what is this, it says ‘Uncle Hassim’s Birthday’?” “Oh, just something I whipped up for the tagine” “Well, what about this one, it says ‘Grandparents’?” “Your grandfather is fond of cinnamon, so I made a spice  blend for their anniversary celebration that had lots of cinnamon in it”… Assim then told us that this is how it is in Moroccan families, the mothers and the grandmothers have the secrets to family specialities (they’re slowly teaching their culinary minded sons the tricks thought).

Another quick story!!! Because we’ve been to a Moroccan friends’ house for dinner, we know about eating with our hands versus eating with utensils. SO, while at Spice Road Table, we avoid the utensils as much as possible. When we called Abdou over to praise the staff, he noticed that we were eating with our hands and bread… He was quite pleased 🙂 Made us very happy to be able to be culturally correct.