Rice Bowl

The Rice Bowl is a Chinese and Malaysian restaurant and takeaway on New Road in Belper, a little uphill from the Bridge Street junction. It is one of only a handful of Belper venues running the full Oriental sit-down format alongside takeaway — the dining room is set up for an all-you-can-eat buffet on certain nights as well as a la carte service.

The kitchen runs the broader Pan-Asian list — the standard Cantonese chow mein, sweet and sour and salt-and-pepper dishes alongside Malaysian dishes, chicken satay, king prawns and a fried-egg section that reviewers regularly pick out. The restaurant was formerly the New Ming Court and the new operators have shifted it towards a fresher cooked-to-order kitchen, which long-standing reviewers have noted as a real improvement.

Restaurant Guru puts it at 4.1 stars across over four hundred reviews, with the Google rating sitting at 4.2. Staff are repeatedly described as friendly and helpful, and pricing is reasonable for the dining room as well as the takeaway. Closed Tuesdays. Evening trading otherwise.