First Feast

Correction: The original version of this article contained an error. Members of the Asian Pacific Coalition were invited to participate in a test run at Feast at Rieber.

A friendly “ni hao” ““ or “hello” in Chinese ““ greeted nearly 300 students from the UCLA Dashew Center for International Students and Scholars gathered in front of Rieber Hall Monday evening.

As they ventured inside, these students became some of the first to enter the Hill’s new Pan-Asian themed dining experience, Feast at Rieber.

Inside, the room was abuzz with the sizzling of Vietnamese sausages and the steady beat of Asian music. The smell of soy sauce lingered in the air while images from Indian and Chinese news stations flashed across flat-screen televisions.

A line quickly formed in front of the Indian samosas as bowls of rice and vegetables, named “Buddha’s Vegetable Delight,” crowded student’s trays.

The dining hall is scheduled to open this fall, though an exact date has not been set, said Daryl Ansel, director of food and beverage for UCLA Housing and Hospitality Dining Services.

In the meantime, UCLA Dining is inviting different campus groups to try the food, in what it has been calling “soft openings.”

These taste-tests are designed to train the restaurant’s staff, who will be responsible for feeding up to 1,500 students at a time, Ansel said.

Today and Friday, residents of Rieber Hall will be able to participate in the test run, as well as other students who get a meal ticket from staff on the Hill. Members of the Office of Residential Life, the Asian Pacific Coalition and families of staff were also able to visit the dining hall earlier this week.

The old Rieber dining hall closed in January 2010 for renovation, and the opening of Feast, as the dining hall is being named for short, was postponed from winter 2011 for additional improvements.

The wait has been too long, said Gabrielle Yu, a third-year mechanical engineering student who lived in Rieber last year.

“I kept waiting for it to open ““ I would have come here all the time,” Yu said.

Now living off-campus, she took the opportunity Monday to have the long-awaited meal.

The Pan-Asian theme was selected based on student demand, Ansel said. A group of students, named the Distinguished Pallet Committee, was formed to advise on everything from the food to the silverware.

“We’ve seen Asian food become more and more mainstream in the last 20 years,” Ansel said. “We wanted something to tie us to L.A. and great Asian ethnic food is unique to this city.”

Feast is also an effort to cater to the growing Asian demographic at UCLA, Ansel said.

“We’ve always tried to be your mom’s kitchen,” he said.

Pheobe Bai, a first-year mathematics student, moved to California from China. She tried the restaurant’s fried vegetables on Monday.

“It is not exact, of course,” she said. “It is very good, but too cold.”

The 300 recipes featured at Feast were drawn from the diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles, said Alex Macias, the De Neve Plaza area manager for UCLA Housing and Hospitality Dining Services.

The entire food services staff ventured to culture centers, such as Little Tokyo and Chinatown, in late August as part of their training for Feast. Each staff member also learned “hello,” “thank you” and “come again” in each of the seven languages for which country’s cuisine is featured. In addition, there are more than 1,000 recipes still in production, Ansel said.

“The feeling is much more like a restaurant than a dining hall,” said fourth-year music student Edward Ryan, as he finished off his passion fruit guava juice. While he said he enjoyed the presentation of the food, he added he is concerned about overcrowding.

The renovation of the Rieber dining hall came in under budget at $5.2 million, according to an email from UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services.

The dining venue will be open for lunch and dinner and feature two types of cuisine from China, Hawaii, India, Japan, Korea, Thailand or Vietnam at each meal period.