I really liked Tusker House -- get an 8:00 or 8:05 sitting, and you're getting out to ride the Safari as practically a walk-on, and the food is good.
Akerhaus is good (I actually rated it my #1 character meal), but you'll wind up getting back out into Epcot proper on the later side -- when we went, the earliest ADR was only 30 minutes before park opening.
PHD at H&V works very nicely if you have kids into Little Einsteins. Otherwise, I'd pass on this one -- no signature items at the buffet, and the character interaction really only works if you have little ones.