Rice & Things

You're walking down Cheltenham Road in Montpelier and you catch the smell before you see the place—that's your cue you're onto something real. Rice & Things sits in that sweet spot where the food is genuinely good without anyone getting too precious about it. The menu reads like someone's actually travelled through Southeast Asia and come back wanting to cook what they actually ate, whether that's proper Vietnamese bánh mì, Thai curries that pack actual heat, or rice bowls loaded with stuff that matters. It's become the kind of place locals keep coming back to, which the ratings will tell you.