A friend of ours suggested that we try Pita Grill’s rice bowls for research, so the other night, we used Seamless Web to order delivery. Pita Grill (there are a few of them in Manhattan) mainly sells healthy sandwiches and pitas, but on their menu there is a “East Meets West” section that includes the rice bowls.

We ordered the Chicken Rice Bowl and the Sesame Ginger Rice Bowl.

Here’s what they looked like and what was in each:

Sesame Ginger Rice Bowl: Charcoal grilled chicken strips, red cabbage, watercress, Julienne carrots and scallions tossed wtih baked brown rice and sesame ginger vinaigrette.

Chicken Rice Bowl: Charcoal grilled chicken strips, chopped Arugula, oven roasted tomatoes, yellow raisins and green onions tossed with baked brown rice, feta cheese and our red wine vinaigrette.

While it’s tough (and probably unfair) to compare these two directly to a bibimbap, there were a few basic differences that made the rice bowl an ultimately unsatisfying dish:

• the overall dish was very dry and there wasn’t enough vinaigrette to mix around (although we imagine that would make for a very greasy dish)
• there was just too much rice and too much food (although it was good to have a good amount of chicken slices in there)
• even with the dressing, both rice bowls were lacking in flavor - there was no exciting interaction of ingredients, just a feeling that you were eating a salad mixed with rice
• $10 for the Chicken Rice Bowl and $10.50 for the Sesame Ginger Rice Bowl - pricey!