the rice den

ordered the xo fried rice, soft shell crab and shandong chicken. everything tasted absolutely amazing!! just wished the shandong chicken is crispier. customer service is excellent. this place is definitely one of my favourites now.

a little pricy...the food doesn't meet my expectation...the environment is good and cosy. suitable for couple dating or enjoy a little chat.

nice chinese style breakfast, the dimsum was delicious. have been there many times. hope to get more discount next time .the people there are friendly too

as a hong kong blogger, i personally am super excited about this restaurant called "the rice den" and it is possibly one of my most intimidated reviews ever. the rice den, with a direct translated cantonese name applied to it, is a hidden gem in st. leonards suburb, about 20 mins away from the city on the north side, and 5 mins walk from the train station.

what a fantastic restaurant. beautiful fresh and modern chinese cuisine, and excellent service. the duck sang choi bow and satay chicken croquettes were exceptional. look forward to going back

very nice deco and design choices in this place. it's been put together with love. lots of interesting retro objects. some beautiful ceramics. excellent service - warm and professional. every single dish was outstanding. standouts for me were the drunken prawns, san choy bao (a world away from the daggy stuff i remember eating as a kid), beef cheeks, pickles, soft-shelled crab. the sago dessert was sensational. the sophistication of this food makes the northern chinese stuff i've been eating seem stodgy. we'll be back to try the rest of the menu. i didn't look into the beer menu but it seemed they had some craft beer happening on tap. good wine menu.

i frequent the rice den regularly. the food is excellent, the cocktails amazing and the entire team very professional and friendly. totally recommend it.

the food was 10/10 excellent! we loved every dish. the service was outstanding, they even put a candle in the desert for a birthday without us having to tell them! loved it and will be returning

while chinese food is one of the most sophisticated and influential cuisines in the world, somehow we all have learned to tolerate the abrupt service and cheap decor.  in fact it has almost become an unwritten rule that the better the food is, the less atmospheric the restaurant is, for example bbq king on the goulburn street old site.

i was rather disappointed with the food at the rice den after hearing all the good reviews here.

besides the sesame cheong fun tasted interesting, the rest were badly done. for instance, the wanton was so badly wrapped that some parts of the wanton skin was hard and uncooked.

the fried rice should be called the charred rice. the chef was unable to control the fire and much of the rice became charred and tasted like soot.

the bbq pork was another dish which was badly prepared. in order to make nice bbq pork, it would be best to skewer the pork meat, marinate them longer and add a lot more honey, caramel and soy, and constantly turn them over a grill. putting inside an oven does not constitute to bbq!!

for those who really think the food here at rice den is good, i would suggest that you make a short trip to bali, singapore, bangkok or any where in asia to try their home-cooked or street food. i bet they taste much better and 10 times cheaper.

rice den is good, the dishes are nice and delicious, but i can't really tell the difference between them and those chinese restaurant in chatswood. they are not very outstanding. the theme is good, but a bit over priced.

i wouldn't describe the dishes i had here as canton cuisine. very much fusion. lots of things to like about this place (service, decor, presentation of food), yet i left dissatisfied with my dinner. can't quite pinpoint why though. maybe a little because of the serving sizes, especially that of sake and ponzu salmon and beef tataki (i should mention though that the salmon was delicate and beef soft, dressing on salmon was well balanced, herbs and onions in beef tataki gave it beautiful freshness). maybe because the kung pao chicken and chilli sesame pork was described as having vegetables yet there was only a tiny amount of diced bits, maybe because those 2 dishes were so sweet when i expected more chilli/ spice (the pork did have a nice crunchy batter and the chicken was well cooked). the spring rolls were nicely fried and the lamb filling was tasty but a little too much spring roll pastry to filling for my liking. rice was also done well. perfect consistency (not too dry, not too stodgy), but not enough ingredients through it. would like to give this place higher score but for some reason it just didn't do it for me as an overall experience.

it is a crime i did not write this article before the year’s end. realistically this venue should be in my top 10. it served me one of my favourite dishes of 2016. the good news is that so far it is my number one venue of 2017. 

the rice den is affordable and in a great venue, although the area it is situated is a bit of a dull dead-spot at night. the staff are lovely and the food and drink game is some of the best i have eaten in the last year. get into it.

the rice den is conveniently situated only a few minutes walk away from st leonard’s station, serving up an interesting take on cantonese cuisine. we’ve wanted to visit this small restaurant for a while and my girlfriend decided that my birthday would be as good an occasion as any so she made the booking on dimmi and we were set for the evening.

i used to love the the rice den when they were in chatswood. it was casual & unpretentious yet, fun & social, and had the most amazing delicious food at reasonable prices. this new version in st leonard is like they have try to up-class themselves. the space is bigger (but still not big), more refine decor, better dressed staff, a modern bar & big window to look into the kitchen. the menu is also more refined, less choices, but look more like a western fine dining menu than the usual chinese fair, and with prices to match.

when you pull back all the razzle dazzle, the food are still delicious, not quite the high i was expecting, especially at the prices they now charge. the steamed barramundi was nicely cooked, great softness & retained the subtle sweetness, however we expected a bigger portion than just a singular piece of fillet. the crispy chilli pork was full of flavour, but not quite that spicy. the softshell crab was generous, a little bit oily.

overall on the food & value it's more a 3.5, but we were there for a girls catch up & we hardly noticed the time, ended up there for over 3 hours on a friday night. the staff were very accommodating & didn't try to rush us out or push us to order more drinks. so they deserve a 4 for being hospitable.