10 stars if I could! Delicious, authentic, healthy Japanese food with attentive staff .... planning to make the long drive to eat here again. read more

Stumbled upon Rice after downtown MB had a big power outage. Luckily they weren't affected. Best dishes were the garlic albacore, rising sun roll and rock shrimp with crispy rice! We didn't enjoy their kale salad--and we love kale but the pieces were way too large to eat and the dressing needed time to marinate and soften the leaves. Minus 1 star for that. Great healthy Japanese option though! read more

Rice - Japanese Near Me - Manhattan Beach, California

I recently moved from Chicago and based on the reviews, it seems like it was a great place for food. The place was small, which is okay, because it cute and near the beach. We ordered the Tuna Roll and Eggplant Roll and both were Meh. The tuna roll was supposed to be spicy, but it was not and lacked flavor in general. The temp of the fish was luke warm instead of chilled. The veggie roll with eggplant seemed interesting, but it was just a big piece on top of a roll. Nothing special about it. My husband and I left very disappointed. Drink selection is very little unless you want Saki. read more

I don't really understand how this place got such high ratings... perhaps it caters to the vegetarian crowd? Or maybe I missed the part of the menu that offers portion sizes for people with normal appetites? I was really excited to try this place after reading all the glowing reviews. And I really wanted to like this place too! It's a cute venue, the ingredients seem to promote "clean eating," and the food itself was pretty good (not amazing, but pretty good). However, I cannot get past the TINY portions here. I am 5'4' and weigh 108lbs. It does not take much food for me to feel full. $50 per person later (with one other svelte gf), we both left the restaurant hungry. If you're looking for good sushi in MB, I recommend Akatora. read more

Incredible food. Best vegan sushi I've ever had in my entire life, best sushi ever as a matter of fact. The service was incredible and the best I've had at any restaurant in a very very long time. The prices were disappointingly steep which will prevent me from visiting more than once a year. Overall I had a great experience and I recommend it if you have money to spend and are looking for a beautiful experience and incredible food. read more

Exceptional! I agree with the other reviewers--what a gem! The atmosphere charming and traditional in all the right ways. Great vibe. Service is excellent, as is the food. Quality is top-notch. And, how great that they offer everything gluten-free and many vegan options. It's hard to find Asian places that are entirely gluten free, but this place is it! Sushi is fresh and prepared by artisan sushi makers. I can't get enough. Delicious! read more

Just finished lunch here again. I come here about once a week and could not be happier with this place. The food is incredible and service is outstanding. I'm a mom to a 16 month old "spirited" toddler and they go out of their way to make her, as well as myself comfortable. You can't go wrong with anything on the menu, though my favorites are the Sunset Pier roll, Farmer's Market app, and their ramen. Looking forward to many more visits! read more

I don't know what has happened to the quality of this restaurant over the past year. In the beginning, every time we came and ordered anything on the menu, we left beyond satisfied and amazed at how flavorful the dishes were. The past 2 times we ate here the food was decent, but the quality was not as impressive as before...we even ordered some of the same dishes as we used to and the quality has gone from fantastic to good. We were highly disappointed after our last visit. I don't know if they have changed the chefs or something. Don't get me wrong, the food here is still decent and good. It is just that I had given this place a 5 star review before and now I feel it is more of a 3 star. read more

V innovative menu and tasty, friendly staff, prices are reasonable, the place is small. The kale orange salad is G R E A T, I am coming back. read more

I'm a fan! Very nice quaint and good service. Brown rice, gluten free and a little healthier than your regular sushi place. We'll be back for sure! read more

Restaurants wanting to learn the art of customer service should take a trip to Rice. Before your fallen chopstick can take it's second bounce, a swift ninja will deliver a fresh pair before your eyes. If you're a vegan dating an animal killer this place is everything you've ever dreamed of. Traditional Japanese dishes with a healthy twist presented in a way that you've never seen before. The mushroom appetizer is finger licking good and the dynamite roll is to die for. The fish is high quality and the produce is market fresh. Each dish is prepared to perfection. The chefs secretively watch you enjoy your food to ensure pure satisfaction... We've been here about 5 times and we love it more and more every time! Don't forget to grab an organic lollipop on your way out :) read more

Service was sweet. A woman welcomed me to the restaurant and sat me even knowing a friend was running late. They were patient and very accommodating. When my friend arrived, they were quite welcoming and friendly. I ordered the marinated tuna roll with avocado and I didn't realize it would have deep fried kale. This was a bummer because the heat of the cooked kale made the tuna rolls warm and the warm avocado just didn't taste good... Also the kale was not flavorful and simply felt like I was eating warm fryer oil. Of the 8 rolls, I ate 6. I never do that. I didn't complain because that's the dish and I should've read that description better. My friend had the toro and something else and said it was delicious. I will most definitely return and look forward to trying something else! read more

Really yummy sushi! Such cute ambiance and plenty of outdoor dining space in the back. They have so many delicious vegan options too! The crunchy dynamite is super spicy so if you're not into that, just beware. And the green tea cake was so delicious and I'm not a fan of sweets. Will definitely be coming back here soon. read more

I've long been a fan of Shojin, so when I heard RICE was opening, and associated with Shojin, I couldn't wait to go. The food was so delicious! Sure, it's a bit pricey, but it's a nice night out, delicious and fresh food, and friendly service. Also, vegan choices galore. Can't wait to go again and try the lunch special. read more

Love the ambience and our server was sweet and nicely unobtrusive. I only ordered the miso soup and kale salad, but my friends ordered full lunches and were quite happy. My kale salad was pretty raw and uninteresting. When I make kale salad, or order it out, it is rubbed with olive oil and salt and is softened quite a bit, and tasty, but this was just simply kale, washed and dried and tossed with a few cherry tomato halves. But as I said, my friends loved their entrees and I loved the atmosphere. I'd go again and try something other than the kale salad. Miso Soup - 4 stars Kale Salad - 2 stars Atmosphere 5 stars My friends' entrees - 5 stars read more

I had to do a vegan like fast for a week and this place saved me! Food had such great flavor and loved everything that we ordered. Who knew vegan could be so good. Healthy but tasty. I would definitely go back. Parking is a biatch tho. Kid friendly. read more

Their vegan sushi menu is amazing! The dynamite roll and crunchy miso ramen was sooooo good. Great ambiance, clean, friendly staff, and made to order dishes. read more

This place was awesome!!! I would recommend it to anyone, vegan or not, they do have a fish sushi selection that looked and tasted just as good. It's small and reservations are highly recommended... read more

Very delicious, authentic. Food comes out at a great time. The Miso ramen is spectacular. Homemade ginger ale I would die for it. They won best new restaurant last year they should win something for there polite service. I could eat here a lot more. It's the place you want everyone to experience. I will Probally come here for dinner tomorrow. read more

Rice - Japanese Near Me - Manhattan Beach, California

Every thing was delicious. We are specially loved the kabocha pumpkin and in sweet garlic soy sauce. The quality in all the ingredients is superb, and everything is made fresh upon ordering. The service is fantastic, and the atmosphere is relaxing and very pleasant. read more

This is a hidden little gem, at least it was for me. It's in a snug intimate setting, and the quality and freshness is really worth the trip, if you aren't local. It will please both fish eater, and vegan a like. I came with a vegan friend, and was very satisfied with the portions, and care that goes into the preparations and the flavors are rich the salad with asparagus is lovely as well as the eggplant based sushi options. read more

Nice little restaurant less than a block from the beach. I enjoy visiting this spot for dinner when I am in town for work. Great service, and I have always been able to walk in a get a table. Everything on the menu is not only delicious, but also is Gluten Free if you are looking for that. Go check it out and enjoy! read more

Was really excited to try this place based on other reviews....wish I didn't. For $100 we were starving after!! The portions are a joke. Rock shrimp had 5 (yes, 5!!!!) small pieces of shrimp. The only thing we liked was the baked crab hand roll. Otherwise blah.... read more

Inventive menu. There are always new specials. The chef is very creative and can really bring together so great flavors. With so many different options it is also vegan friendly. Even for those who are not vegan i recommend giving those menu items a shot. read more

Went for lunch today and it was amazing. Great service, delicious clean and fresh tasting food. I appreciate that RICE cares about offering vegan and gluten free menu items. They also offer fish so it's a great place to go with non vegans as well. The miso soup was the best I've ever tasted and the salads were really good too. We ordered all four vegan rolls and they were all equally amazing in their own way. We LOVED the Purple Treasure eggplant roll. We didn't find it to be any more expensive that our usual restaurants (Like Real Food Daily, Cafe Gratitude, Shojin), but if you're concerned about price try it out for lunch- the lunch special includes sake! read more

Went here last night with my wife for dinner. Nice decor, not stuffy, and AMAZING music mix. They play classical/jazzy remixes of popular pop and rock songs, and if you ask they have CD's of their playlist that they'll give you for free :-) We had an appetizer of shishito peppers, three rolls, and sushi, two large hot sakes and Asahi all for around $90. It's very reasonably priced for the area and quality of the food. Rolls are $12 and they have around 8 on the menu, plus 6 or 7 sushi/sashimi options. The rolls we're really interesting, with their own twists on many classics. Creative use of flash fried seaweed for crunch, lots of shiso leaf, and they use brown rice, which adds a nice texture to everything. My fav was the jumbo scallop sushi - like butter! read more

This place is amazing! Flavorful, creative, complex. Everything we've had here is awesome. I would recommend the Americane miso ramen (rock shrimp, kale, crispy onion, garlic chips, shrimp miso broth) which you can get with gluten free noodles. It was so good we ate all the way down to the bottom of the bowl. Also would recommend the Big Wave (Scottish salmon roll with avocado and truffle oil), and the rice pinchos (spicy tuna). They even have gluten free desserts. We basically come here any time we're in the neighborhood. Parking is challenging but totally worth it! read more

Rice - Spicy tuna pincho and sweet eggplant pincho. Delicious! - Japanese Near Me - Manhattan Beach, California

Love love this restaurant. The sushi is the freshest sushi in town. They also use brown rice which taste great. The staff is top notch. They even remember names of the customers. Everything in the menu is delicious. Highly recommended. read more

This is a very small restaurant with excellent quality and healthy options for sushi. The rice is brown rice rather than white rice which is more healthy. However I think I prefer white rice for my sushi as I am more used to the taste of it. The prices are slightly high. There are California rolls which you can get and are not included on the menu. These are excellent. There is plenty of adjacent metered parking. Staff is very friendly and knowledgeable. The tea is excellent. read more

The place promises only real ingredients and real food, and delivers. Especially if you're vegetarian or vegan, this is a good restaurant for you. But we found it lacking in terms of overall taste and value. Details: We had the Sakegria. It is basically Sake + Sangria and with all the berries, fruits and mint in there, it tasted sweet and refreshing. To the unsophisticated, you could barely tell it was Sake instead of Red Wine. It's a good choice for those who like their alcohol sweet and aren't discriminating towards Sake. We had the Special Sashimi platter. This was delicious, especially the fresh snapper. However, we felt the portion size was small. We had the steamed cauliflower w/ creamy yuzu sauce and toasted cashews. It was an unorthodox combination and we didn't really enjoy the tanginess / mayonnaise-essence of the sauce. A for effort, I guess? The plus side is that Rice has a lot of vegetarian appetizer choices. We had the rice pinchos with jumbo scallops. The scallops had a nice sear on them, but they only seared one side and it was slightly too salty. The rice ponchos are basically brown rice seared into a rectangular formation. It's kinda like eating a rice cake, except fresher and more malleable, but also has the same bland tastelessness. Okay. Finally, we had the Crunch Miso Ramen. This is a very unorthodox dish. Avocado, fried tofu, fried scallions and ramen in a spicy miso broth. It actually worked pretty well I thought. If you're looking towards unconventional Japanese with healthy vegan options, or want to try something out of the beaten path, this is it. But if you're a meat eater or just want the regular authentic Japanese experience, maybe not. read more

Just came back from this place and I am in a food coma in my bed writing the review. Everything was delicious!!!! First time at this place and we will be regulars, I am pretty sure of that. We used to go to the sushi place on MB Blvd and Highland but it is boring and over-rated. I had the rainbow roll, Uni sushi, spicy tuna crispy rice and salmon sushi. Yes, all to my self!!!! All of it was delicious and tasted very fresh, especially the salmon, it was very buttery. My husband had something from the specials - he kept raving about it. It was served on a martini glass, very nice presentation. We ordered the ice cream trio and it was so yummy. A perfect serving since for two. A bit expensive but I would say totally worth it. Great service. The waiter held the door for us as we walked out and offered candy. Very courteous. It seems like the place has been in business for over two years. I wish them lots of success and that it remains open for a long, long time :-). read more

Vegan heavy menu meaning lots of vegetables. Was very excited about this. We got Brussel sprouts and broccolini. Both cooked very well. They had a lot of choices that were fried. Some of them shouldn't be fried. We also had tuna on crispy rice. Lots of tuna. A little too much rice. Great food! Not to busy. Constant refills on our water and green tea. read more

A terrific restaurant. Small but friendly. The kind of place that makes Manhattan Beach great. Excellent sushi and other Japanese dishes (that also happen to be gluten free and safe for people with celiac disease). I make a special trip to RICE whenever I visit the area. Well worth it! read more

We are lucky to have this gem. The food is beyond good. I love the crunchy ramen and the deserts are melt in your mouth. Love!

Was out with friends looking for a nice dinner without an awful wait on a Saturday night. Luckily Rice seems to have opened just recently so we had no trouble getting a table. I tried their sake sampler which, for $10, was a nice introduction to three different kinds of sake. The super-dry Otokoyama seems like a crowd-pleaser. Very drinkable. The mushroom/asparagus/lemon juice appetizer was a treat (~$6) while the sliced potatoes (~$6) were fine but nothing to write home about (good flavor but with the texture of...well, potato---they would be better if, like a good french fry, they had a crispier crust). Sashimi was excellent. Very basic options but delicious ($8-$10 for 6 pieces). We had salmon and tuna. I can never get enough salmon sashimi, and I'm not sure if they gave it some special treatment, but I'm still thinking about it 12 hours later. Wasabi was good and spicy. Our rolls ($12-$15) were a mixed bag. This is where you start to notice Rice's vegan sympathies. Rolls are made with brown rice and about half of the options are vegan. Our Dynamite Roll, for better or for worse, did not live up to it's name. It was unremarkable. The S.G.A. Roll (tuna and garlic), meanwhile, was disappointing. Of course our expectations were raised when a garlic breeze wafted over our table immediately after ordering the roll (these people aren't kidding around when they say 'fresh'), but the result lacked flavor. On the plus side, our Sunset Pier Roll was very tasty. I don't know why more rolls don't contain shiso leaf (after all, there are plenty of places that use cream cheese, of all things) but it's delicious, unexpected, and not the least bit contrived. Rice seems to give a lot of thought to vegan and gluten-free options (including gluten-free soy sauce). We were seeking neither of these things, but still had a pleasant meal. The prices seemed reasonable, especially for downtown Manhattan Beach. Service was warm and attentive. I would gladly return and try some of the other items recommended here on Yelp. read more

Service - A+ - Greeted with a warm smile AND a hot towel! Food - A - vegan brown rice sushi & vegan ramen - yummy! Parking - C - We parked 3 blocks away, however, we did go on a Saturday night so naturally MB was more crowded than usual. Overall, great little place to have a nice dinner. I really appreciated the great service. read more

Delicious! Loved the crispy rice sushi. It's a great place for my gluten free friend to have sushi again. She enjoyed the GF beer too. Small place. Definitely get a reservation. read more

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Best service! Great food! Seriously, this place has THE friendliest, most polite and courteous staff. They greet you warmly and energetically when you enter, hold the door for you, pull out your chair, make sure you are well taken care of when you dine in, etc. Additionally, the sushi (both vegan and non-vegan options I had) were phenomenal, and the ramen my boyfriend had that I also tasted a bowl of was delicious. The bathroom they communally use too has everything from lotion to mouthwash to qtips! Great stuff. read more

Very nice place. Vegan friendly. Mushroom salad is amazing! I highly recommend this place everyone! The view from the window is good ( the beach) . I was there on Saturday, there are not so much people and it is good for conversation. read more

Rice - Japanese Near Me - Manhattan Beach, California

As someone who is gluten-free and loves sushi, I finally made it down to Rice. And it was good. Not great, but good. 1. Service: This was awesome. People could not have been nicer. 2. The atmosphere: yeah, it's small, and you are kind of squished together, which is especially hard when you're trying to have a convo with the person you came with. I heard the people at tables around me better than I heard my partner. But the decor is beautiful, and the overall feel of the place is very nice. 3. The food. This is where Rice earns 4/5 stars. So yes, all the food is gluten-free (magical!!!). It was our first time at this place, so we ordered almost the whole menu to try it out. And while the food is generally tasty, many of the dishes have a similar flavor profile. They are heavy on umami, and not much else. Where is the acid? The heat? The brightness? I mean, I love rich umami flavors as much (well, probably more) than the next girl, but the food felt heavy, and I can't remember the last time I thought that after eating sushi. (The dense brown rice, while delicious, also contributes to this.) So many heavy sauces and fried garnishes. And I GET IT -- I mean, we gluten-free folk can't have that stuff anywhere else, so it is certainly a rare treat. But I wish the dishes that contained these elements were better balanced with acid/heat/freshness. The vegan food was significantly better than the fish. The fish was not spectacular, and I wouldn't order it again. The vegan stuff was pretty good though. So there you go. A fun place for a celiac to go? Yes. No cross-contamination worries, and you can order anything off the menu. My fav sushi joint in town? No, not by a long shot. But probably worth a return visit. read more