Spice Cafe

Absolute terrible service, after waiting 50 mins and never getting our food we decided to leave. I let the owner know and her response was «okay, but you better pay for your drinks» (two pops). I was absolutely floored. No care or consideration for the customers, no apology or empathy just complete disregard. And as we left we started seeing two other tables get up to leave as well. Reading reviews on other sites it is the same complaint over and over and they still have done nothing to address the issue. Extremely poorly run.

I’ve been here a few times for lunch. Its something different and the service is usually pretty quick. I do find it over priced for what you get but its fairly flavourful food. Is it Malaysian? Thai? Vietnamese? I am not sure it knows.
The menus are a little weird (with the markers and laminated menus as mentioned earlier). Its also weird that their menu is three pages so you have to share the pages out with those at your table. If you didn’t know better, you see a pretty small menu in comparison to the person who gets to hold the two page menu.
Its one of those «pay at the front» places too which can get congested.
Its a solid, different little lunch spot but nothing spectacular.

I go to the Spice Café every few months. One of my coworkers (and dear friend) have designated this our favorite lunch spot when we are escaping the office, and do not want to go to a kiosk.
Over the years, I have tried most of the things on the menu and I have never had a bad lunch there. The ambiance is cozy as well. Lots of deep rich colors on the walls. They get top points for the foods that I have tried, which is most of their salads, appetizers and burgers, and rice bowls. There are lots of healthy options as well.
The only thing I am not that keen on is the system of ordering and paying. When you order, you are given two menus and a marker. You use the marker to ‘check off‘what items you want. The waitress picks up both menus, fills your order. When you are done, you go up the cash register and pay. The gal pulls out your two menus that you wrote on, tallies them up, and you pay the bill.
However, the 3 stars out of 5 is based on the ordering and paying system. It sounds easy enough and it is. the reality is, black sharpie ink on a plastic menu tends to be a little dirty. When handing menus back and forth between dining guests, as well as the hand off to the waitress, it is tough to be unscathed. I can‘t blame Spice Café — I guess I need to take more care. However, as a habit of eating in restaurants, I am not use to taking the precaution, so I get dinged.
Also, when going to a sit down restaurant, it is nice to spend the time with my friend Mary visiting, instead of getting up to stand in line to pay. I expect to do that at a kiosk, but it would be nice if they would bring a bill and have the waitress take payment, like most other sit down restaurants.
The food is good, so I will continue going back. However, I am hopeful in the future that they may implement more service. The staff there are a pleasure to deal with, but I think a little more process will make this a 5 star in my eyes.

Spice café is totally disappointing. I think I can cook much better Malaysian curry… no laksa, no roti prata… rice is so dry and hard… Expensive… zero stars from me.

Spice Café has different types of Asian cuisine like Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese. It also has burgers, salads, etc.
The restaurant was quite crowded when we got there at lunch time. We ordered:
Roti — pretty good and piping hot, served with a little curry — PERFECT!
Malaysian Laksa — not bad — this is the coconut curry-​based noodle dish. The laksa curry is more of the watery type like the hawker stores in Singapore. My only complaint is that it is not served with laksa leaves or rau ram (in Vietnamese) or daun kesum (in Malay). We actually brought our own to accent the flavour of the laksa!
Gado Gado — vege salad with peanut dressing — not too bad — this is Spice Café’s version of the Gado Gado — the real one is served with kerupuk (shrimp crackers) and ketupat (compressed rice cubes). The peanut sauce is pretty tasty.
Penang Char Kway Teow — flat rice noodles fried with onion, chinese sausage — quite good.
Curry Chicken — served with rice and vege — the curry was lacking a little spice for me and there was not enough curry to coat the rice.
If these dishes are too eclectic for you, you can order burgers, salads, etc.