Riceface turns lunch queues into rice-powered bowls

Palisa Anderson’s new rice-powered lunch counter opened to immediate buzz. On each of the three times Broadsheet visits Riceface – in The Galeries food court, next door to its older sibling Chat Thai – a crowd of people, tickets in hand, are waiting for their numbers to be called. Those tickets are exchanged for bowls of butterfly pea-blue rice topped with stewed tofu and greens. Or maybe golden turmeric rice topped with grilled chicken, revved up by the chilli-kick of nam jim jaew, and a

herby side salad. Riceface is a pick’n’mix situation, with a core opening menu of four rices and five proteins. The grain, though, is the star. “Rice crosses cultures,” Anderson says. “No matter what culture you come from, there’s a version of rice-something. But not as heavily as it does in Southeast Asia or South Asia, where it is the basis of everything you eat.” So much so that in many Asian cultures, a typical greeting is “Have you eaten rice today?” The bowls here are

definitively Thai. A yellow bean ginger garlic sauce adds punchiness to chicken and rice; while a serve of red char siu pork arrives in a lemongrass-spiked pickled plum gravy, with both steamed greens and pickled turnips utilising produce from Anderson’s own Boon Luck Farm in Byron Bay. “In our market garden, we always have leafy greens,” she says. “Water spinach in the summertime, and then in the wintertime, there’ll be all our salad greens, our plate additions – the radicchios and the mustard greens.” Summer

provides a glut of chillies, which are dried out to last through the year, and aromats like ginger, galangal and peppercorns come from the farm, too. The operation is a departure from what you might expect from a food court kiosk in 2026. Everything is made in the on-site kitchen (shared with Chat Thai), and your food arrives in a proper bowl, too. “Nothing comes pre-packaged and ready to sell,” says Anderson. “The chicken is deboned and poached in-house. The rice is cooked in-house.” It’s

a commitment that connects the venue to the mission Anderson’s mum, and Chat Thai founder, Amy Chanta first set out on in 1989. “We use a very good-quality rice, a triple-A grade rice, which is always the season that’s just been harvested,” says Anderson. “[My mum] started an importing-exporting company that brought in the rice that we wanted to use, cos we couldn’t find the quality. She sold that company maybe 18 years ago, and I still buy from them, because they bring that rice

in. It’s always about trying to find the best quality that we can. And the things that we couldn’t find, we grow.” Twenty-seven years after Chanta opened her first CBD spot, her daughter adds Riceface next door. A place where the most expensive bowl is $18, and there are $10 soft herb salads and $2 chicken soups to add on. “It makes me feel really happy to see people here,” she says. RicefaceLower ground, The Galeries, 500 George Street, Sydney Hours:Mon to Fri 9am–6.30pmSat &

Sun 11am–3pm riceface.com.au@hello.riceface

Riceface, The Galeries, Sydney food court, Chat Thai, Thai rice bowls, butterfly pea rice, turmeric rice, Boon Luck Farm, Byron Bay, nam jim jaew, lemongrass pickled plum gravy