Rice Garden

The food tasted alright. The Presentation of food items are not so great.

Clean.. reasonable prices and great food

Serviceable sustenance. Gets crowded around lunchtime with limited seating.

Lunch options are plenty in DTLA, but not too many of them are suited toward someone not in the custom of wearing one. With that said, Rice Garden is among those places that's always in the running for my favorite game, "where am I getting lunch from today?"

It's easy to see why they get comparisons to Panda Express. Of all the other one-off Chinese foods spots I've seen, this is about the only other one (aside from that PF Chang mini joint) that cares about branding. Any hoo, it's hard to burn rice, but the ingredients are certainly on par if not better than the fare at Panda. A two combo plate will set you back a hair under $7 and that sits well with me.

I haven't read other people's reviews, but I did see some a few 2's and a couple 3 star reviews. The place is all business to me. Priced slightly above being dangerously cheap but culinary enough to coerce me out of making my own lunch. Rice Garden (they do offer brown rice fyi) is just A-OK with me.

NOTE: reception is almost non existent in that food court, but there is a muted TV you can gawk at...