Feast At Rieber

Small portions. Getting up and waiting in lines for every dish gets a tad old.
That’s about the only complaint I have with Feast. I’m a Trojan; you can say any negative thing you want about UCLA and I’ll probably nod and laugh but I will shake my head if you say their campus is ugly and I will fight you if you say anything bad about their food.
Does Feast have authentic Asian food? No, it never tries to be that, but the shrimp shu mai is tender and juicy, the egg rolls are soft and tasty and fresh, and the seaweed soup even is a tad oily but whatever, it’s so freaking good. I inhaled it. The rice noodles with bok choy – it tasted of the beef and some salt and soy sauce and that’s it. The green onion pancakes are baked instead of fried, but still carbalicious deliciousness.
As my previous reviews might show, my allergy to peanuts weighs heavily on me, but the sous chef here, Michael, walked me around the ENTIRE place and pointed out where peanuts are. He made a point of assuring me that Feast staff themselves don’t use peanuts. He did point out that some of the salad dressings had peanuts, so he told me not to use any of them; if I wanted salad dressing, I should just find him and ask him to make me some.
I mean, come on, that’s amazing customer service at a help-​yourself-​buffet. Bruins, you might have chosen the wrong place for an education (I tease) but dang if you’re not fed well in your years at UCLA, and served by some great people.

Man, have things changed at Rieber dining hall. It’s been at least 7 years since I’ve been back so when my mentee offered to meet up for a meal at Rieber, how could I say no?
The remodeled look and new theming at Feast is superb. It all complements the food they are serving and the look feels like it belongs in the now than the previous 90s look. Right before you even enter the door, I noticed they had changed out the old lockers, so you no longer need to fish for a token and can just throw your stuff in the locker, select a 4-​digit code, lock it, and be on your merry way for gluttony. Inside, other than the visual changes, the portion size is also smaller and the use of trays are discouraged. First off, yes, portion sizes are maybe half or a third of what they used to serve. I like this because sometimes your eyes are just larger than your tummy and you just want a taste and not a full blown entrée size. The only downside is that when they’re serving anything popular, you have to line up multiple times to get your fill of it. The day I came, one of the stations was serving Taiwanese beef noodle soup. The portion was enough for 3 bites and the line for this stayed steady at 8 people deep, so to get enough bowls equal to a regular portion, it may take a couple of trips.
Memorable food items I sampled that day include: fried onion pancake (chong you bing), something that looks like a beef roll with egg but without the beef, curry chicken with steamed rice, and milk tea (!! happiness !!).
The only downside that would probably be resolved after you get used to it is when you bus your plates, bowls and silverware. Coming from the generation (say it ain’t so! it hasn’t been that long!) that was so used to putting everything on a tray, it was a stacking and carrying challenge to take all my used items in one trip. And I didn’t make it in one trip. It took me two! The bowls (both square and round), plates, drink cups, etc. did not stack and fit nicely together, so rather than giving a show to everyone and earning their applause when I would’ve dropped something on my first return trip to Rieber in years, I opted to look slightly foolish and go to the bussing area twice. If I ever have the chance to return to Feast, lesson learned to be mindful of the plates and bowls I use for later stacking purposes (no amount of Tetris skills will help with these slippery suckers)!

Always a hit or miss with this place, and it’s rarely a hit. Even when it is good, only one item is appealing. The main problem is their lack of vegetarian options. Sometimes they’ll have a fish or seafood dish in place of the vegetarian dish and I don’t appreciate it. It’s a disappointment as a dining hall.
However aesthetically feast is great. The cups are decently sized (unlike other diving halls at ucla) so I don’t have to run to the soda fountain every 5 minutes. there’s a giant TV in the front that always plays food network, usually Chopped!

Feast can be excellent, although a rare occasion, but it can also be disappointing on multiple levels, which is the most common occurrence.
FYI this is a UCLA dining hall.
Pros:
— The people who swipe you in sometimes speak to you in different languages!
— When it’s good, it’s really good. I’m talking sashimi, avocado, fried rice, etc.
— Unique desserts from other countries
— Cool themes like animé night and Chinese New Year
— Vegetables
— Unique ice cream flavors and something resembling dole whip, or so I’ve heard
— Beautiful space with modern fixtures and Asian-​influenced décor
Cons:
— Too salty a lot of the time
— Too much sauce most of the time
— Desserts are sometimes gross. Taste bad and are inauthentic.
— Bowls are heavy.
— Soups look weird. I’ve never tried any so maybe they’re good though.
— Small portions
Ultimately, my reviews go both ways in terms of being positive and negative because that’s what Feast is: a gamble in which you never know what kind of menu you’re going to get.

One of the better dining halls on campus. Definitely check the menu before you come, because it is hit or miss. But when the menu is good, it sure is good.
It has the sleekest interiors of all the dining halls in my opinion (well, next to B Plate). The portions are on the smaller side, so be prepared to keep going back in line for more. They have theme nights with performances sometimes– which are really fun and the entire dining hall gets decorated. For example, they have an Animé Night where tons of people come dressed in cosplay and there’s live performances from student groups.
The station closest to the door is normally a rice/​meat dish or noodle. To the left of that station is the flatbread station. The grill station, past the salad bar, typically has fries, meat, hot dogs or sandwiches of some sort. The most popular station is the one furthest away from the door that has the main course– a meat and vegetarian option.
They also just added mango and pineapple soft serve that tastes like dole whip, definitely recommend! Pro tip, if Feast is serving something like sashimi or having a themed night, get there early to avoid the line!

Korean Royal Tteokbokki Rice Cake! Pineapple Dole Whip! Thai Fried Plantain with Spices Flatbread! Princess Blueberry Bar!
Six Pan Asian Feast stations: Bruin Wok, Iron Grill, Spice Kitchen, Greens and More, Stone Oven and Sweets!
Am I at a fancy Vegas buffet or a classy Asian restuarant with a awesome variety? Nope, I’m at the Feast At Rieber! The Feast At Rieber is one of UCLA’s newer residential dining halls. It has a Pan Asian theme and each day, the dining hall offers different cusine from the regions of China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Indea, Philippines, India and Hawaii.
I lived in the dorms for four years while at UCLA but definitely do not remember dorm food being as amazing as this! Now don’t get me wrong, the food back then was pretty good but the food now at Feast is a «feast!»
I love that they go all out to serve authentic dishes. To have Korean Royal Tteokbokki Rice and Korean Yakgwa Honey cake for dorm food just amazes me! It was really good too! From the savory dish to the sweet treats, everything was pretty much on point.
One of the best things too was the price! $ 11 for dinner! What a deal!
I walked out whith a mango dole whip in my hand and could not help just think of how more awesome UCLA is now! Great school and delciious food, how can I not be a proud Bruin Alumni? ;) I mean where else can you get a world class education and eat world class cusine. UCLA! Woohoo!

Feast is really good at times and other times it’s whatever but when it good it’s good

Shout out to Lily at Feast for asking me how my meal was today at feast. She made my experience here much more enjoyable. I have never been to a dining hall that has asked how I liked my food and what I thought they should improve on. Thank you Lily, for giving my friends and I a memorable dining experience. That being said Feast serves great shrimp with shell on and some bomb sashimi. Proof in pictures below. Feast hire more Lilies please

Feast was one of my favorite dining halls at UCLA. I swiped some of my relatives and friends here multiple times and they absolutely loved it. Everyday the dining hall brings a new Asian culture and their respective popular dishes, adequately representing oriental fine cuisines. The variety of flavors here provide a defining contrast to the repetitive food choices provided at other dining halls. As an added bonus they even serve different interesting drinks respective to each culture you can’t try in many other venues walking distance from UCLA. If you are ever offered a swipe, I recommend taking a look at what’s cookin’ at Feast!

Feast is one of the four dining commons at UCLA. Feast is different from the other three because it has a theme. Asian inspired food, all the time. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Philippines, and more all pop up on a rotational basis at this hall.
It has a great location for those at the top of the hill, but it does have the most selective food. Most of the Asian and international students eat here for reasons that make sense.
I think that Feast is fun and consistent. Always interesting food, and staples of chicken thigh and fries. Rice and green tea soft serve a plenty. One could see why some are turned off to the theme of the hall because it is more of an acquired taste than the other more homestyle dining options.

The best dining hall in ucla and LA! Sticky rice with little morsel of pork chop, crispy fried tofu, tamarind soup… There are a lot more i cant list here! The utensils make the food really delicate! Im so fond of the desserts, esp the cowboy cookie and lychi mochi!

UCLA has some of the best dining hall food in the country and Feast shows why. Yet, it’s still dining hall food, which means it’s cooked in large quantities, kept warm, and fed to the masses. Feast may reign supreme over other dining halls and buffets, but there might not be any reason to eat here unless you are affiliated with UCLA. They try to plate the dishes small to reduce waste, and maybe to appear gourmet. Lines form for specific dishes because of a plating bottleneck as well. While it’s not cooked to order, but plated to order, it seems inefficient for busy students.
Conceptually, Feast is a cool idea. It’s Asian fusion. There’s kpop playing loudly most of the time. There’s also some sort of sliders and stir fry rice bowl dish. There is always some sort of fries sprinkled with furikake and some crispy flatbread with toppings that match the cuisines of the day too. Cuisines served here include Hawaiian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Filipino, and more. And as a staple of any buffet, there is a salad bar, soft serve machine, and dessert display case.

I don’t understand the proportions. Come on! We are hungry students. We aren’t here to sample small morsels of food. I would like quality and quantity please. If I wanted to have some gourmet stuff I would try to venture out in LA and not stay on campus. I appreciate the effort and care in the preparation of the food. The staff is always nice. I will be back the next time I get swiped.
–Tej

#168. Let me just put this out there: UCLA dining hall food is one of the best in the nation. This means a lot because I’m a Cal Bear– and we’re pretty much better in everything (let’s be real).
First off, if this place is going to be called FEAST, those serving sizes should be a tad bigger. I know they’re most likely trying to keep things small to not let food go to waste, but this is coming from a small girl. I wonder how the athletes manage. They’re probably going back for fourths and fifths. This is one serving for yakitori beef (
) for a 6’1″ guy, who probably has a bigger stomach than I do. Probably.
Some of their dishes are too salty and/​or saucy. A lot of the food looked good, but didn’t taste as good as it looked.
If you’re a prospective student, don’t worry. There are other dining halls on campus. And they’re probably better than this one.

Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe people need to stop saying «omg UCLA food is so good.»
Maybe I forgot that dining hall food is dining hall food.
My friend told me that this place is either a hit or a miss. I guess it was a miss on the day I went.
Miso soup ramen was aite. Spicy crab-​ish flatbread was the best out of everything I had. Pork teriyaki bowl was aite.
Desserts: carrot cake was good. Cream puffs tasted like plastic. Japanese melon bread… don’t go there. Green tea ice cream seems to be a fav but I didn’t really see what the big deal was :/​
Sorry bruins.
But hey, your food is a whole lot better than what I had at USC.

Both me and my wife went to UCLA, upon hearing about this new Asian restaurant at the dorm, we decided to go there for lunch one Friday just to relive our good old college days. This place, I tell you, is just too good to be true!
First off, we had a little problem with my wife’s UCLA meal card at the check-​in, we had to go back to the Rieber front desk a couple times and they still couldn’t figure out what the problem was, but the staff at Feast was patient and helpful, and the manager there, Oliver (at first I thought he was a student worker), was incredible with his customer service, and he really saved the day. I was very impressed by how he handled his customers, and this is a dorm! He puts the service that I’ve gotten in much nicer establishments to shame!
I think the food was great for the price (what $ 7.50 for all-​you-​can-​eat?!), and the concept was ingenious, different types of Asian food every meal! We tried a little bit of everything, the dynamite over rice, the grilled chicken sandwich were particularly good.

⁵⁄₅ stars for a dining hall. This is nicer than most restaurants I’ve been to.
Pros
–Great décor/​seating
–Good food, although some of it is pretty obviously re-​hashed dining hall food
Cons
–Music can get too loud. It adapts to the noise of the room so the louder the room gets, the louder the music. Perpetual cycle of yelling.
–Line to get in went fast, but it was structured like a club complete with a bouncer outside with a headset communicating to people inside when to let people in.
Overall, it was a great experience for a dining hall. Food is good, décor is great – wish the music was a little

The best dining hall at UCLA, period. De Neve and Covel used to be the hot spots, but now, its all about FEAST.
Man, compared to what Reiber dining hall USED to be (American cafeteria style food like hamburgers and pizza), walking into Feast was an entirely new experience. For one, chrysanthemum tea as a beverage? AMAZING. Each corner has its own ethnic dish. I went on a Friday, so it was Korean and Japanese. Boy was it delicious! My friend and I decided to get a bit of everything and share, just so we can get a taste over everything without overindulging/​wasting food. The cuisines change everyday, so there are dozens of new dishes worth trying.
BTW, its no longer cool to carry trays anymore because the fancy vegas style bowls are made for stacking! This is more eco friendly, cos then you’ll carry less bowls = save water and waste less food! Its so easy to overindulge when youre in the dining halls. So, grabbing only what your hands can carry is a great method to lower our carbon footprint.
Overall, the food is beyond amazing. It draws similarities to wicked spoon in vegas. Definitely my favorite dining hall at UCLA by far. Can it get better than this? I dont think so :)
Also, for non-​UCLAers, here’s a little factoid: UCLA campus food is ranked #2 in the nation, second to a culinary school! We sure are spoiled.

Am I seriously writing a review on a dining hall? You bet I am.
Unfortunately for me, the year I move out of the dorms is when they decide to finish this swanky Rieber dining hall and showcase how much money UCLA Food and Dining has. Outside electronic lockers, which are a lot more convenient and cooler than the ones in the other dining halls. Fancy booths and chic tableware and as much as I like the tableware, they are so much more difficult to stack plates. The cups are really cool though, plus one for them.
Food here is really good for a dining hall, but nothing out of the ordinary in my opinion if you were to find it elsewhere. Maybe it’s because I haven’t gone when they had really good food? People rave to me about the days where they have Japanese and Hawaiian cuisine, but I’ve yet to try Feast when they serve Hawaiian food. I’ve tried their days with Vietnamese, Indian, Japanese, and Korean. All the food is of course Asian and not too bad for being non-​authentic. Who would have thought that they’re serve phở, ramen, and the likes… and actually not do a bad job? My personal favorite would be when they have Japanese food.
The thing I have against Feast is that they may be geared too much towards the Asian crowd. What if I wasn’t a fan of Asian food or just wanted to try it one day and decide that I didn’t like what they were serving? Their alternatives aren’t very diverse, even the salad bar lacks balsamic vinegar and only have Asian toppings and dressings. I mean, it’s cool that the whole dining hall is Asian-​themed and gives you a full dining experience, but if it just so happens you’re not feeling the food for a specific day, there’s no staple grilled cheese, burgers, pizza, or a normal salad to fall back on.
Do really fancy how they have drinks that match the themed days here and the POG (Passion Fruit, Orange, Guava), yum.
Lines are a pain though, but Feast stopped limiting the amount of people entering and the lines have died down. Waiting for the food is a little longer than expected, especially when you don’t receive that large of a portion.
If they were open for dinner, I’d like this place a lot more. Some of the food I feel is geared more as dinner than lunch.
But not bad at all. Really good for a dining hall, but personally would still prefer Covel out of all of them.

Decorations: granite tables, music of the themed day, booths, fancy bowls, etc. (looks like restaurant). They add to the mood by playing news from different countries and Korean dramas on tvs even though sometimes weird children puppet shows have appeared.
Food: Being Asian, I was pleasantly surprised that the food was pretty good! I was expecting panda express style but rendezvous has already got that covered. They have different themes everyday: Vietnamese and Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Thai. My favorite dish is the tuna sashimi seaweed flatbread. Some other favorites include: short rib, ramen, duck soup, spicy shrimp sushi, and samosas.
Their daily staples seem to include some type of curry, fries, sandwich, and a rice/​noodle option. They also have this great sesame ginger dressing for salads as well as an array of side dishes such a kimchi, bean sprouts, radish, pickles etc. The downside is that portions are small and many servers do not let you get extra servings unless you go back in line; I (along with other students) usually have to get 2 – 3 servings of one dish, which results in long lines. They recently started having ‘themed’ days for new years and similar events.
Desserts: Hit or miss. Hits: mango coconut sticky rice and custard buns. Misses: non-​chewy mochi, Thai Romit (I can’t even find a description of this dessert on google?!) anything glazed with green or abnormal colored sauce. They used to have a good hot tea selection (Bird Pick) but replaced it with a cheaper, less flavorful brand.
Drinks: Do not get the pandan or tamarind. The Thai tea and Vietnamese coffee are pretty good but rarely served from what I’ve experienced. They also have barley tea, ginger, and chai tea sometimes.
Now open for both lunch and dinner. Overall, I am impressed! Good place to eat if you are craving asian food :)