NZ HERALD January 2010, John Gardner

Central Auckland is not celebrated for its visual beauty. But there are few more gruesome aspects than the view from the Wolfe St side of Rice, with the decaying Challenge House a showcase for the sort of graffiti bandits who give the lie to the idea it is an art form. Presumably the customers don't look out much. Probably because I used to work nearby, I have always tended to think of Rice as a lunch venue, although I had heard good reports of its dinner performance. Its current summer menu recognises a more informal approach, with just one dinner/lunch listing split into what they describe as "small tastes and street food" and then mains all also available in entree sizes. This provides considerable flexibility and we thought of just assembling a small battery of different dishes. There is always, however, a difficulty on this route in that a taste in some places requires a microscope to be detected and in others a couple of their smaller dishes combine into one whopper meal. We were kindly advised that two of our proposed choices would, together, test a stern appetite so we mixed and matched with discretion. Under executive chef Kate Fay and head chef Kazuya Yamouchi, the food emphasis remains eclectically oriental, dependent on good local ingredients. Typical are the "small taste" offerings of vegetable tempura with orange ponzu and wasabi aioli and the rice-coated crispy chicken, this time with a masala aioli. From these we chose the grilled rare beef with oriental dressing. This was routine but good, with the beef delivered in slices considerably thicker than a conventional carpaccio. Being greedier, I started with the laksa fish of the day hotpot which was probably the standout of the evening. Laksa is one of those dishes which turns up in hundreds of variants ranging from a thin weedy soup to a fish-flavoured coconut porridge. Rice's version was spicy without being crude and of a respectable consistency and the choice of trevally, a comparative rarity in commercial kitchens, was inspired, with the meaty texture matching the broth. This came with the Malaysian-influenced nasi lemak rice salad and udon noodles and made a first course of substance. The first of our main choices should probably have been the outstanding dish of the night, Rice's signature roasted duck with scallops, and a watermelon cashew nut salad. It's hard to go wrong with proficiently cooked scallops and duck - and they were. But there was a lot of salad and the palm sugar and lemon grass dressing was a little sweet for our taste, although if you see palm sugar on the menu you should take notice. My main course of Hereford beef was similarly well cooked, as ordered, and with a lively ginger and garlic relish and black sesame jus. Some of the desserts demand customers with a particularly sweet tooth. We ventured into this range with success with the soft-centred chocolate pudding, which came with caramel sweetcorn ice cream and mandarin jam or, as I prefer to think of it, marmalade. I had the strawberry tart with vanilla custard and ginger icecream, which turned out to be a sort of mille feuille and was pleasant. The wine list is a well-balanced range of local and imported with a fair selection by the glass. Rice remains a comfortable and civilised place if you ignore the view. None of the cheerful clientele seemed to notice anything, possibly being too busy confronting that eternal mystery of why young women of robust physiques so often pick clothes just a little too tight. Rating out of 10 Food: 8 Service: 7 Value: 8

Awarded 'Best Dish in Auckland' by Metro Magazine

The Roasted Duck, Watermelon and Scallop Salad awarded the Best Dish in Auckland at the Metro Audi Restaurant of the Year Awards in April of 2009.

Metro Top 50 Restaurant of the Year 2009

...for the second year running, Rice is proud to be included in Auckland's top 50 Restaurants!

Metro Top 50 Restaurant of the Year 2008

...Kate Fay is Auckland's best fusion Chef!

Metro Corbans Restaurant of the Year 2007

Rice is the sister restaurant of Cibo in Parnell except this is the hip, inner-city version. Perched on a mid-town corner of the CBD, it was designed by Jasmax several years ago but its retro-Asian-modernist interior has actually stood the test of time rather well: red walls, minimalist light fittings, enormous floor-to-ceiling windows looking out into a suitably unprepossessing backstreet. (It’s been said before but the moulded Panton plastic chairs are terrifically comfortable.) The place shows clear signs of the restaurant’s ownership: waitstaff tend to the friendly, joshing patter you might remember from Cibo; water glasses are kept well topped up. Floor staff are knowledgeable, friendly and enthusiastic about the food. The nosh is very firmly fusion with an Asian slant: the rocket and pear salad comes with toasted cashew and coconut; the duck liver parfait arrives with chapatti and a tamarind and raisin jam. Mostly, there’s a clever combination of ingredients and styles without creating any monsters. Purists have wondered why you wouldn’t just wander down the street for a laksa at Food Alley, but this rather misses the point. 2007 Metro Corbans Restaurant of the Year Awards - Smart Casual category.

viewauckland.co.nz, 2006

* * * * * Auckland's Best International Restaurant

NZ HERALD July 2006, Ewan McDonald

Herald rating: * * * * 1/2. "Once upon a time some clever cooks decided to open a restaurant. It would be unlike any other restaurant in the city. The cooks called in some groovy designers and got them to make over an inner-city warehouse into a funky space with lots of glass, deep red walls, funky white plastic seats and gorgeous light sculptures. What made it different was the premise. All the meals, the puddings and many drinks were modern versions of recipes from different countries: all had one common ingredient. Because that ingredient was rice, that's what they called their restaurant. Because it was cool and funky and different and the food and the drinks were very, very good, the people who lived and worked in the buildings nearby liked the place and it was a smash hit. But the founders decided to move on. They sold the restaurant to the chef and the maitre d' from another groovy eatery in an old industrial building in another part of town. And a year later Rice - a very good restaurant in its earlier life - has become a seriously stunning place in its new form. Owners Jeremy Turner and Kate Fay have made subtle changes. Turner's protege is Ryland Wood; Fay's understudy is Leigh Hartnett. Wood learned at the sideboard and Hartnett at the stoves of their employers at Cibo. Service is styled and paced to match the inner-city clientele: young, fresh. Cocktails lean on in-house infused sakes. On a chilly night I was investigating the possibility that a lemon honey gin might ward off a virus when Bridget and Blue arrived. With Fay looking over a shoulder, Hartnett's new menu continues Rice's original theme of borrowing from Asian cuisines and combining them with Euro styles or ingredients to create original dishes. Example: Blue's entree married rare duck breast, shiitake and water chestnut sausage, Tasmanian scallop and Vietnamese slaw. Bridget and I chowed down on an artful, contemporary rendering of Hong Kong street food: Chinese barbecued pork belly, chilli pickled plums and a steamed bun which, stark white and plastic-looking, matched the furniture. Not a grain in sight: the "must have rice" rule has gone. Exotic ingredients and flavour are all. Noushuku dashi, agedashi tofu and dancing bonito flakes are names and tastes you'll get your tongue around here. Blue craved steak. At, say, Lone Star you'd get meat, spuds, mushrooms, beans, right? Well, you do here, except that Rice's version updates it to eye fillet and sweetbreads, wasabi pot-sticker gnocchi, mushroom and soy beans. That left me to deal to the cervena, delicately, pinkly roasted in cumin, a potato dosa, and the full-force tang of beetroot relish. Bridget's main might have been the closest to a heritage dish all night: Japanese-style crusted and seared tuna steak, somen noodle salad, and pesto made from shiso, that country's basil. Purists might scoff that this sounds like the excesses of 90s fusion. In less sure hands that might be. But every flavour, each nuance is considered; cooking is expert and assured; and, at the last, presentation is inspired. And none of the mains tops $30. Blue and I talked about a lengthy wine list dominated by superior local vintages, and brought the food back home with the softness and subtlety of Peregrine pinot noir 03 from Central Otago. Rice has always given good dessert, and we ended by nibbling on biscotti, sorbets and cheddar. Making a meal of it. With food this good, and a restaurant this classy, you should, too."

Metro Corbans Restaurant of the Year 2006

It’s still one of the best rooms in town with its sleek Panton chairs and designer lights, although the floor-to-ceiling windows can mean one feels rather displayed. Rice was sold last year to Kate Fay and Jeremy Turner from Cibo and it’s fair to say that something has been lost in translation, but there have been gains too. The menu is still interesting, without being intimidating; it’s the kind of place you might try tofu for the first time and be well rewarded. (For tofu beginners we suggest the featherlight cube of tofu in a puddle of broth with two wrapped, fried prawns and baby herbs, which is divine.) We love Rice’s more unusual dishes, which are not ridiculously complicated; if the kitchen were a tad more consistent, you’d barely be able to tear us away. 2006 Metro Corbans Restaurant of the Year Awards - Smart Casual category.

CITYMIX November 05

"If you liked Rice before, you'll love it now that the terrific team from Cibo have taken over. The charming Ryland Wood is in charge out the front ... Asian flavours continue to feature heavily on the menu, but rice dishes from all cultures are celebrated. The decor is still as groovy as the day it was designed."

NZ HERALD July 2005, Michelle Hewitson

Viva Herald rating * * * * 1/2. “The Mentor is a martyr to the gout. I don't know why it is that gout is one of those things that people are martyrs to. I do know why it is one of those agonising things people laugh at. This is because it conjures up a picture of a round and ruddy chap who dines each night on, say, quail and steak and black pudding and port. That, minus the port, is about what the Mentor ate. I had worried that he might, because of the gout, prove to be a picky eater. And so he was, in a contrary sort of way - he choose all the gout-giving stuff from the menu. Which was annoying in another way because he ate what I wanted to eat. He is not a round ruddy chap, the Mentor (this, unbelievably, is what he does for part of his living) but he is a big chap and it was really quite funny to see him tackling the tiny, ladylike leg of quail. Honestly, he could have tucked the whole thing in his mouth in one go, but he was on his best behaviour. Well, almost. He's just arrived back from Canterbury and has decided Aucklanders are prententious tossers. He said he'd spotted a few at Rice but he said this hardly loudly at all. We were much taken by our not-pretentious-at-all duo of interchangeable blonde waiters. They popped up like two sweet, good fairies all night at the appropriate moments - when we needed more plonk. The service was always good at Rice, which has not changed since the good people at Cibo took over. The room, against the odds, has remained fresh. All that white can go boringly stale. And it has the most comfortable dining chairs, in moulded white plastic. The food, too, is as good as ever. I've never had a bad meal here and on this night it was a very good meal.