Rice Bowl

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Voted Best Chinese Restaurant by the Sacramento News & Review in 2001, the Rice Bowl sets itself apart by its size, menu items, and quality. It is larger then most ballrooms and offers both traditional Chinese, Hong Kong, as well as more Americanized dishes. Due to major health code violations, Rice Bowl was temporarily shut down during the summer of 2005. As of August 2005, these problems have been rectified.

There's something for everyone, particularly if they like Dim Sum, which is served at brunch-time on Sundays. Below is a listing of their Dim Sum offerings.

• Almond Bean Cake:
  

• Baked Char-Shiu Bow: Baked bun filled with roast pork.
  

• Ball Lo Bao: Literally "Pineapple bun." But good luck trying to find any pineapple in there.
  

• Beef Shui Mai: Steamed, open top beef dumpling. A stereotypical dim sum food.
  

• Beef Tripe: mmm... cow stomach. It's actually really good if they cook it right, but it can be a little greasy.
  

• Black Bean Sauce Spareribs: Yum.
  

• Char-Shiu Bow: Light bun and appropriately flavorful pork filling. It's available in a steamed or baked form.
  

• Chicken Bow: Had a dark-meat chicken-y flavor.
  

• Chicken Feet: In some kind of brownish sauce.
  

• Chive Bao: Steamed green dumpling with a bold chive flavor with a hint of shrimp.
  

• Custard Tarts:
  

• Deep Fried Fun Gow:
  

• Fried Meat Vegetable Bun: Light bun and appropriately flavorful filling.
  

• Fried Shrimp Ball:
  

• Gee Cheung Fun: Rolled up rice noodles served with Hoisan Sauce. Simple, yet surprisingly good.
  

• Har Gow: This steamed shrimp dumpling is one of the most popular dishes available for dim sum. Any dim sum place that can't do this well isn't worth going to.
  

• Har Gow-Like Dumpling Whose Name Eludes Me: An item impressive in both taste and appearance, the top of this steamed shrimp dumpling has four partitions, containing a tiny piece of a mushroom, red pepper, carrot, and a pea.
  

• Lotus Sweet-Bow:
  

• Mushroom Shiu Mai:
  

• Oyster Sauce Roll:
  

• Pork Turnovers: The pastry crust overpowered the filling.
  

• Porridge:
  

• Pot Stickers: Fried on the bottom first, and then steamed.
  

• Rice Cake:
  

• Sesame Turnovers:
  

• Sesame Balls: A deep-fried rice flour dough filled with Red (Sweet) Bean Paste.
  

• Shark Fin Gow:
  

• Shiu Mai (Pork?): Sizable open topped steamed dumplings.
  

• Shrimp Fun Gow: Steamed dumpling has translucent wheat wrapper that reveals a pink shrimp filling.
  

• Shrimp Roll:
  

• Snails: Very large and cooked in a faint brown sauce (black bean?). The snails had the same texture as squid, and half the snails unexpectedly had flavorless hard crunchy things inside. These were hopefully the calcium carbonate shells of fledgling snails, sometimes referred to as French Caviar. Given the French Caviar, this is the most adventurous Dim Sum offering, and potentially least rewarding if you unwittingly crunch one of these things.
  

• Umm... you were supposed to pull those off before eating...
  

• heh, I figured that out pretty quickly :-) I've eaten snails 3 or 4 times on the East Coast, and never ran into those things before. Is this a regional, seasonal, variety, or preparation thing— the snails at Rice Bowl were 2-3 times larger than those I've eaten previously, similar in size to escargot.—CraigBrozinsky
  

• Spareribs Rice:
  

• Spring Rolls: Fine, but not all that exciting given the other selections. Comes with a Sweet & Sour sauce that is thankfully less ketchupy than those served in Americanized restaurants.
  

• Steamed Beef Balls:
  

• Stuffed Bean Cake: The tofu well complemented the subtle shrimp filling, but the filling easily jumped out of the tofu.
  

• Stuffed Green Pepper: Unlike the Stuffed Bean Cake, which uses the same filling, the pepper overpowered the filling. However, it did stick together well.
  

• Sweet Milk Bao:
  

• Sweet Rice: Served in a tied up banana leaf.
  

• Sweet Rice with Chicken:
  

• Taro Cake: Good flavor and the crust was fried just enough to balance Taro's inherent pastiness, which can additionally be cut with Soy Sauce. But remember that not all Chinese like soy sauce.
  

• Taro Crescents:
  

• Turnip Cake:
  

• Water Chestnut Cake:
  

• White Chicken Feet: No dim sum place is complete without chicken feet.
  

• Yellow sponge cake: Enormous.

Some info originally from Davis.

Comments:

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2005-04-10 22:53:13   for sacramento, the place is pretty good i guess. but for those who ppl who have tasted the better offerings of places in the SF bay area, youll be disappointed with Rice Bowl —PatrickSing

2005-04-10 23:12:42   Can you post the good Bay Area places on the Dim Sum main page? I've been to one or two that were recommended by CBCs, and didn't think they were as good as Jing Fong in NY. —CraigBrozinsky

2005-09-07 21:47:17   I liked this place just fine; while it may not be as impressive as San Francisco or Los Angeles dim sum establishments, it is perfectly adequate. Their menu has all the standard fare, and the prices are quite cheap. I and three of my friends went out, stuffed ourselves, and our bill only came to just over $20. Good times! —JoannaHeiple

2005-10-03 12:32:36   I've been here twice and although nothing beats the dim sum from home in the Bay Area, this place is pretty enjoyable. The hours make it easy for a late start to the day since they usually have plenty of food left ~2 PM. The staff is really nice and speaks English very well. I even got 10% off on one visit! —LiRic