spice island - crowne plaza dubai deira

never disappoints. mongolian station with lobster tails in garlic butter cooked to perfection in front of you.
amazing value for money especially when they run promotions through sites like cobone.com (thanks for that to my wife!)
329dhs for top package - "saffron" - includes the best branded booze
my kids love it and despite being free or half price normally eat more than i do !
thisplaceused to be fashionable in the old days but because of its deira location i reckon it's become a secret again and that's a shame
would recommend for great value, lovely attentive service and good food ?

surely the best buffet i have ever had. theplaceis quiet pricey but its completely worth it. wide variety with probably all sorts of cuisine, all types of food and delicious desserts. if you are a sea food fan, then thisplaceis a must!

the best way to enjoy thisplaceis to go there with a group of friends, empty stomach and chill there for a few hours trying every thing at small intervals. don't be shy or embarrassed or else you will regret it later! so make sure you go there with the right people. :p

the service is good too. they serve you drinks, change your plates from time to time and are always around for assistance.

to be honest, i have never ate so lavishly. thisplaceis totally worth your time, money and tummy.

thisplacesums up the line - quantity over quality.
it's a huge buffet - no denying that.
but not all huge buffets taste good.
i visited spice island years ago when it was under renaissance hotel and this time i happened to get free dining vouchers.
a group of us decided to go for the friday buffet. they have a salad counter, mexican, live cooking mongolian station, chinese, japanese and indian.
we ordered a round of orange juice - was yum. squeezed fresh.
i started with the salads. nothing new nothing interesting.
i headed to the mexican counter. i think that's the only thing i enjoyed - making my own chicken fajita however i don't think anyone noticed some of the items getting empty.
the most horrid tasting was the salsa. it just tasted - bad.
next was the mongolian counter - we got a lobster and prawns. the only added taste was a dollop of butter. so you have butter prawns and butter lobster. nothing great at all. although they did have the chicken and beef wherein you could add your own sauces and sides as well.
the chinese and indian counters had cold food. literally. it was lying there. cold.
at the indian the paneer was amazing and for the chinese the beef stir fry.
i never made it to the japanese but i headed to the desert counter. nothing special just dried up cake and a few pieces of watermelon. the gajar ka halwa didn't taste anything like it's supposed to be but i loved the umm ali ! i took a second helping.

apart from that our server was amazing and paid a lot of attention.
you will have a lot of families with a lot of noisy children, if that's not how you'd like to spend your friday afternoon, you could skip this.

although we had a free brunch, the starting rates for they're buffet is aed 199. not worth it.
2.0 for the chicken fajita, orange juice and umm ali !

having heard a ton of review from my peers , thought to test the waters with both feet.. a bad decision indeed.
took the last weekend (saturday afternoon) before ramadan to try this place.incidentally, they did not have a buffet and hence we had to settle for the ala carte. problems started from there as their ala carte menu is really bare.

ordered veg spaghetti pasta with pink sauce for the little one...it was way too creamy for our tastes.
dynamite shrimps we’re not exactly fresh and lacked zing so was a disappointment.
the beef rib eye was a bit over done but can’t complain as we asked for well done..
we were celebrating an occasion ....went south miserably.
guess my recommendation is to skip ala carte and only hit thisplaceif buffet is up!

if lost was filmed on spice island it would be a whole new tv show.

lets refer to spice island as 'the island.'

first impressions, well as you enter the island, you cant help but get a feeling that you will have a wonderful evening after a long day at work. the interiors are a mixture of modern and rustic atmospheres giving a very calm relaxed sort of feeling. as if you were lost. well balanced ambiance which makes its diners want to stay there for longer. i did not want to leave the island to be honest. a few more hours in there would definitely not be exhaustive.

unlimited alcohol, for a price and very nice. the staff are very warm and welcoming and are not to nosy or overly eager to serve you. so that adds to the relaxed atmosphere of the island.

the buffet is wide spread, kind of like the charecters of lost. you got mexican, middle eastern, chinese, thai, indian, japanese and of course a whole salad bar and dessert section. it is so wide spread infact that you would get tried going from oneplaceto the other. also annoying is the fact that you have so much to choose from and you cant pick all. thats a bad thing for me. makes me want to tear my hair out. the island has a a live food counter which makes whatever they cook really brilliant no matter what it tastes like. to be honest it is more of a thrill watching them cook. who wont be impressed watching a chef clang aways on a hot plate cooking your veggies? i literally had to be dragged away from there cause i was creating an obstruction.

the food is a lot of variety and as i said before it is annoying that you can eat only so much knowing that you will be missing so much more. so thats a downer. how does the food taste? well thats the big question.... you see the names misleading so thats why i would be calling it only the island, cause not a lot of spice is used in not a lot of dishes. but hey! whats in a name?

like i said i had a wonderful time and the atmoshere is wonderful and the spread of food is simply amazing, but the food is highly inconsistent as well. it does have its peaks and it has it short falls. overall the food is likeable but it does not deliver and it does not make you want to go for a second serving of the same thing.

fabulous places for generally grown up people who want to spend quality time with more grown ups. not overly formal with the right amount of hipster would what i would describe the island. just a suggestion about what would tie this up perfectly is a live band playing soft jazz. o my god would that be phenominal!

to sum it up, do spend some time in aplacelike this. its not the fine dining at its best, but it surely is subtlety at its finest.

you can park in the basement if you have a car!

ringa ding ding!

after researching on great buffets for 2 f=days, we had decided to give spice island a try!

greatplaceto have a family get together. amazing buffet and cordial staff!

look forward to visiting again.

#throwback the days when #brunch was my favourite time where i got to have the relaxed environment taste different kind and different varieties of food . starting from the great #appetizers like salads soups ,drinks ,breads . then with the great mains from seafood , arabic , oriental , continental , asian and mediterranean . lastly the great selection of #dessertporn from every kind of selection available. this amazing delicious brunch i had in @crowneplazadubai located in #sheikhzayedroad #danainternational for great offer for brunch was really commendable. hope to visit soon as one of my favourite brunchplaceto hop in !!!
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the variety of food available isn't that great if you're a vegetarian. i visited the restaurant on a saturday night; i'm not sure if this spread is just particular to staurday nights, or if it's the same all through out. i liked their beverage section, though! different teas, ginger ale, whatnot. the food itself could have been better. it didn't blow my mind or anything. it's alright for a night out. ambience was pretty chill. they had a mexican stand thing! that was something i hadn't seen at a buffet spread before, but it was disappointing because 1. it doesn't go well with the rest of their spread, and 2. they didn't have a vareity of fillings to choose from; just guac, salsa, cheese.
i just find anyplacewith a 'make your own tacos' option a teensy bit tacky--i much prefer telling them what i want, and having a chef expertly prepare them for me. have you seen me make anything?!? making my own tacos just makes it super awkward, especiaaalllyy if this is supposed to be a fancy-pantsy place.

the bestplacefor a buffet with alcoholic drinks. go there for that.
there are lots of finger food options to add. from cheeses to sushi & sashimi to tacos & enchiladas to grilled tikka.
boom!

i've known thisplacefor over 14 years and have celebrated some very important days and personal milestones dining at the spice island. i returned on december 4 for nostalgic reasons and would have left disappointed had it not been for the warmth and courtesy of the staff. charles and his team really went the extra mile to make sure that we were taken care of and did what they could to make up for anything that didn't meet our expectations.

a very nice restaurant with a lot of food options. good ambiance, good staff. i would love to try this another time. kids friendlyplacefor sure.

thisplacecaught me by surprise. good food, great ambiance with plenty of tables as theplaceis pretty big. the staff is a little slow and inattentive, which is one of the only drawbacks. 

we had gone here for an office party with some 20 people and everyone had a great time. the drinks were good, but service was a little slow. we had opted for the dinner buffet with the drinks package. the deal was not explained properly to us so we couldn't make full use of it, but a minor drawback. the restaurant takes a last order of drinks by 11:30pm when they shut down by 2:00am so that was a little disappointing. the buffet, however, was really good. not too many options for vegetarians but a lot of great choices for non-vegetarians especially for seafood lovers. the service again though, when it came to the live stations was slow. overall good food, was very satisfied.

i would give it a 3.5/5. will definitely visit again. :)

disappointing. thisplaceused to be so good in the past but it's a shame that this is what it has become. very very disappointed with my experience. never again.

i love thisplacelast year i have arranged my birthday party here and i frequently visit spice island , i ask everyone to try spice island once and you will love it trust me

it's a very good buffet is it offers a wide range variety of food. there are indian, arabic, mongolian and japanese food. the live station was also a great touch to the buffet. at the time of my visit, theplacewas quite crowded.