Rice Workshop Geelong

When we think of Japanese food, the variety on offer at Rice Workshop doesn’t always spring to mind. Part of the motto behind the eatery is to shift the preconception that Japanese cuisine centres around sushi and raw meat, which the newest Geelong location is doing with every bowl is puts on the counter.
“When anyone thinks of Japanese food they always think of raw meat, sushi and sashimi, but there’s so much more to Japanese food than that,” creator David Loh says.
“They don’t eat that everyday. They do eat hot meals too and that’s where the idea of Rice Workshop came in. We wanted to look at the daily staples and the food that they actually eat everyday.”
The brainwave for Rice Workshop first came from a trip to Japan with head chef Tom Suzuki, who David met through a mutual friend.
“Once we were there we ate our way through Japan,” David adds with a laugh. “He showed me around and that’s where we saw the possibilities. We thought, ‘How come there’s nobody else doing it that way in Australia?’
“Obviously with Tom being a Japanese chef we said, ‘Okay, maybe we should explore that’. Then we came back and looked for a location and that’s how Rice Workshop was born.”
This ability to lock into the next best thing in Australian food culture has become something of a skill for David Loh, who has also founded Bubble Cup, Food Republik, Dessert Story, Shop House, Taiwan Cafe and most recently Rice Workshop.
“I try to catch the niche rather than do the mainstream,” he says.
“At the time bubble tea in Asia was doing really well, and I thought, ‘There’s not much to it is there?’ Just tea with flavoured syrups and the Tapioca pearls.
“So when I started that it was in a kitchen sink at a friends apartment where we mixed some syrups and different teas to see how it all comes to together. It turned out to be a big success, and that was sort of the moment where I realised there’s these trends that we should identify and bring to Australia or look for the niche.”
Much of David’s ability to find these missing elements in the Australian food scene comes from his general love of food, rather than research. David has long had a passion for Japanese cuisine and is a passion he also shares with his wife.
Originally from Nagoya, Japan, Tom Suzuki offered David the missing ingredient to the Rice Workshop formula. In their partnership David found someone who shared his passion with Japanese cuisine (Tom is a well-known Japanese chef who also opened a Sashimi et Bento place, Shyun) but who was also able to execute his food dreams.
“I’m a food-lover as well as an entrepreneur. He had a vision as a chef to promote Japanese food in Australia and that’s where it all came together,” he says.
The end result is a menu that features a bounty of choices from meat dishes and curries to noodle and salad bowls. Each well-priced bowl is packed with flavour and takes you on a culinary adventure to Japan, with flavours you previously wouldn’t have been familiar with.
Much like the immediate service of food from vending machines in Japan, Rice Workshop prides itself on quick and quality service. What ties it all together is the delicious, and secret, ingredients of each sauce. But how involved was David in its creation?
“Not at all, I guess too many chefs spoils the broth,” he adds with a laugh.
With another new venture already on the way, David Loh is proving to be a pioneer in the Melbourne (and Australian) food scene. Geelong has been lucky enough to receive the Rice Workshop franchise in the food court of Westfield Geelong and adds another notch to the belt of the already culturally diverse cuisines on offer in the shopping centre.
If you do one thing today, make sure you enjoy in the real tastes of Japan, and Rice Workshop will certainly save you the cost of the plane flight there.
Written by Amanda Sherring
Where: Shop 212, Food Court, Westfield Geelong (95 Malop St, Geelong)
When: Mon-Thu 9am-5.30pm; Fri 9am-9pm; Sat 9am-5pm; Sun 10am-5pm
Website: http://riceworkshop.com.au/