Review: eet Hasn’t Quite Gotten Up On Its Feet

We’ve learned our lesson over the years, and we didn’t head out to eet on opening day. It’s too often fraught with hiccups that are almost always corrected in short order. So we waited a week before dropping in at Maneet Chauhan’s new eet Quick Service restaurant in Disney Springs. The title probably gives you a clue that our experience was mixed, but we think there’s a lot of promise here.

The Restaurant

eet is in the Marketplace neighborhood of Disney Springs, right next to Disney’s Days of Christmas and the Marketplace security entrance. It’s billed as “Modern Indian / Indian-inspired” flavors, and is generally open 11 am to 11 pm (you should always check My Disney Experience for hours).

The space itself is decorated in bright, saturated colors that will instantly bring to mind the warmth of Indian spices. Indoor and outdoor seating is plentiful, and there were several empty tables when our parks researchers visited on Saturday at about 1 pm. Overall the vibe was spacious, colorful, and clean.

Ordering is a standard counter-and-marker setup; you place your order at the counter and receive an electronic ‘homing beacon’ (looks like a pager) that servers use to find you when bring out your food. The server who took our order was lovely and very patient with questions and explanations.

One thing that really stood out to us was the to-go station. Just to the right of the self-serve drinks fountain, this counter was set up with several sizes and shapes of to-go containers. Bowls, plates with lids, and an assortment of carry-out condiments. It was awesome.

The Food

Shareables range in price from the pair of Samosas for $9 to the $18 Bread Service. Along with salads, pizza, and breads the major offering of this menu is a “Build Your Own Bowl” entree. For $18, you choose your base, kebab, and sauce; there are several choices for each with varying degrees of heat. On the kids’ side, you’ll find the basic trinity of pizza, burgers, and chicken fingers. There’s a seasonal drink in addition to a pair of desserts. Tap here to see the full menu at eet.

Lil’ Sliders – $9
Two hawaiian roll sliders, beef patties, and american cheese with choice of fresh fruit or fries and served with apple juice

Crispy Chicken Fingers – $9
Served with ranch, choice of fresh fruit or fries, and served with apple juice

We don’t normally start with the kid food, but in this case these were some of the best dishes of our meal. The chicken fingers, sliders, fries, and rice were a huge hit with the little folks in our group. The burgers were on tiny rolls similar to a chicken mini or a Hawaiian roll. No complaints from the minors on any of these. Also, no leftovers.

Garlic Naan – $5.00
garlic, kasoori methi, clarified butter

Buttered Naan – $4.00
traditional indian flatbread

eet Bread Service with Pimento Whipped Paneer – $18.00
buttered naan, garlic naan, pimento whipped paneer cheese, masala vegetable sticks, indian pickle, coriander honey, chutneys

The bread was the biggest heartbreak of our experience. All the naan was burnt: the Garlic Naan, the Buttered Naan, and the Bread Service. Some worse than others, but not just well done – burnt, with that unpleasant flavor of charcoal. We had also ordered a Chicken Tikka Naan Pizza that never showed up, and we’re oddly not upset because it probably would have also been burnt.

On top of the disappointing naan, the Pimento Whipped Paneer wasn’t really giving off Indian vibes. It was more “Sitting on a dock on Lake Hartwell eating my pimento cheese sandwich before I go wakeboarding again.” Fusion is great but it actually needs to fuse the two cuisines together, and we didn’t get that here. The coriander honey overwhelmingly tasted of honey, and if you tasted really hard, you could get a vague sense of some coriander that might have been stored in the same room. The chutneys were underwhelming too.

Build Your Own Bowl – $18
includes pickled red cabbage, indian pico de gallo, and masala chickpea pearls | choose base, kabab, and sauce
• Pick Your Base: cumin basmati rice | turmeric riced cauliflower | fresh salad greens
• Pick Your Kabab: tandoori chicken | paneer tikka | basil cilantro shrimp | masala roasted cauliflower
• Pick Your Sauce: tikka (aromatic buttery tomato sauce) | saag (rich earthy spinach sauce) | moilee (golden coconut curry sauce) | korma (cashew saffron sauce) | bhunna (classic indian curry sauce)

We picked a base of Cumin Basmati Rice, Tandoori Chicken, and Tikka sauce. The chicken was decent but we just didn’t enjoy the tikka sauce. It felt watered down, without that punch of flavor that we expected to get. It didn’t taste bad, like something that you don’t want to eat. It just also didn’t taste good, like something that’s making your tastebuds happy. The rice was fine and other elements were unremarkable, but it was hard to look past the ho-hum-ness of the main feature.

Samosa Chopped Salad – $15.00
chopped lettuces, cucumber, radish, tomato, garbanzo, mini samosa croutons, chaat vinaigrette

Taste-wise this was one of the highlights of the meal. The lettuce was fresh and the dressing was tart and bright. The tiny samosas had a good flavor. The thing that keeps us from labelling this one a winner is the price: the flavor was fine but at $15 this doesn’t feel like a good value.

The Verdict

Our ordering experience was great, we received almost all of our food very quickly and the CMs dropping it at our table were very friendly. The staff here are 10/10, and a big reason why we’d be willing to give this another try even if we weren’t in the business of reviewing Disney World restaurants. Outside of that, there were some bright spots, but it’s hard to look past the fact that we ate an Indian meal where the bread, the chutneys, and the tikka sauce ranged from burnt to “just not that good”.

We feel strongly that this can’t be the usual standard, because we’re familiar with Ms. Chauhan’s recipes and devotion to the art of bread. By all accounts, she is exacting and passionate about bread and we’re guessing she would have been just as sad about the plates of bread disaster we were served.

We’re rooting for this location and the sweet staff swayed us enough that we’re willing to try again. We’ll be back in a bit to check in, and we do expect to find that the issues we experienced were just a rocky start. Stay tuned.

Were you as disappointed reading about this food as we were eating it? Do you plan to give eet a try on an upcoming trip? Let us know in the comments!