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Rice Face is serving some of the best value lunches in Sydney’s CBD, and owner Palisa Anderson says her chicken rice stands up to the greatest she’s tried in South-East Asia.
Chat Thai restaurateur, farmer and author Palisa Anderson isn’t one to brag, but she reckons the chicken rice at her new farm-to-food-court offering Rice Face “stands up to some of the greatest chicken and rice dishes I’ve eaten in South-East Asia”.
The chicken is slow-poached on the bone until it’s silky and soft, and served atop jasmine rice cooked with chicken-fat garlic confit. The rice is her favourite part of the dish, Anderson says. It was also the starting point for Rice Face, which opened on Friday alongside the Chat Thai hot bar at Sydney shopping centre The Galeries.
Chat Thai has been a mainstay of the underground food court since 1999, when Anderson’s mother, Sydney’s late queen of Thai food Amy Chanta, opened the takeaway spot to feed comforting, home-style dishes to Thai shift workers.
“My mother wanted to create a central place where Thai people, all the workers in the city, could come and grab their box of food before going off on their shifts,” Anderson says.
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It closed in February for its first renovation in 15 years, and the space was divided in two: one half, Chat Thai, the other, Rice Face. Two counters, one kitchen. Two different concepts, grounded in their mission to make Thai cuisine accessible to all.
“What proved to me that we’re on the right path is that the Thai people stick with us,” Anderson said.
“We heard from the cleaners and centre staff that customers were coming in regularly to check whether we’d reopened yet.”
When speaking to Good Food, Anderson had just got off the phone with a regular customer, who recalled memories of Chanta serving lunch: “She just told me how happy she was that we’re open, and how my mum was so nice to her when she used to come and get her food before she went off to work, to clean the Qantas lounge,” Anderson says. “It’s stories like that which make me feel really proud.”
Twenty-seven years later, and the lunch crowd still clears the 54-dish bain-marie and hot bar by around 1pm each day. There are all the classic dishes: bamboo shoot fish-gut curry (Thursdays only), crab omelette and Anderson’s go-to, the pork rice drop noodles.
Now, six new dishes (plus dessert) will nourish the next generation of diners at Rice Face.
The lunch and early dinner spot is named for its focus on khao na, a Thai term referring to rice bowls served with protein such as chicken, beef or duck. The translation, when taken literally, means Rice Face.
“[Khao na is] very much a traditional worker’s lunch in Thailand,” Anderson says.
The menu includes barbecue pork with pickled plum and lemongrass gravy, and shiitake with tofu and Chinese kale in a mushroom sauce with chilli vinegar. Each is available with your choice of jasmine rice: plain, tossed with chicken fat, infused with turmeric and garlic, or stained cobalt blue with butterfly pea flowers (pretty, but also high in antioxidants, says Anderson).
Anderson’s Boon Luck Farm on the Northern Rivers produces the aromats, greens, pickles and seasonal fruit, which is used to create fresh juices and iced longan or pandan tea (grass jelly is an optional add-on).
Coconuts are harvested, pressed into coconut cream, and transformed into coconut soft serve. It’s served with a house-made version of Ice Magic, flavoured with pandan or Thai milk tea, and a side of black sticky rice.
This week, Rice Face is encouraging diners to have their first taste, by offering all rice bowls for $10 until May 31. From June, prices will start at $15 for the mushroom and gravy bowl, up to $18 for the braised beef and barbecue pork options.
Open Mon-Fri 9am-6.30pm; Sat-Sun 11am-3pm
Lower Ground, The Galeries, 500 George Street, Sydney, riceface.com.au
