Portland restaurants -- some hits, and a few misses

We’ve been settling into our life in Portland, and we’ve been enjoying the food. Always eager to hear about more places we should try. Here are some places we’ve eaten in August and September.

Taste of Szechuan – I read that this place was under new management and chef, so we gave it a try for takeout food. Some things were excellent, particularly the braised tofu (which was mild but gingery and also contained pork) and the ma po tofu (one of the best versions I’ve had in the USA, also w/ meat). Some of the American-Chinese dishes were also excellent (e.g. orange chicken and shrimp fried rice). Other items were only OK: potstickers, spicy eggplant, string beans. I didn’t care for the hot and sour soup, which was too peppery. But we’d definitely order from here again esp. for the mapo tofu!

Oly’s Pizza - Our local pizza spot just a couple blocks walk from our house, we’ve ordered from here several times. I like that you can order half-half pies with different specials/flavors. It’s not perfect pizza, but it’s the closest I’ve lived to a good pizza place in many many years, so I’m excited about it.

Alma - We were very excited for our date night here, and unfortunately it was only OK for us. Some dishes were decent, but others were too salty. The lighting was also really dark – like they had decided on everything in June forgetting that by early September, it gets dark a lot earlier. My husband said eating here reminded him of when he would be up studying in the late-night hours at the university library, with those little desk lights. Probably not the vibe they were looking for?

Shami Cafe - Had some very nice takeout shawarma and falafel sandwiches from this place near Mt Scott Park. They have a small back patio that I got to peak into when I was picking up food. I’d definitely return.

Ken’s Artisan Bakery in Nob Hill - I love the goat cheese and leek croissants. Also enjoyed the guava snail roll and the morning bun. We also tried one of the small passionfruit tarts. Everyone thought it was too sour, except my 3-yr-old who loves sour things and thought it was perfect.

Sivalai Thai Restaurant on Stark - We ordered takeout from here a while back. Everything was pretty basic and only OK, which was too bad because the people there were super super kind and friendly.

Wajan - We ordered some takeout. I loved the beef rendang, and I also liked the fried chicken. The menu feels pretty heavy though – not much in the way of vegetables or lighter dishes. So I’m not sure how often we’d eat here, unless we order some food and make our own salads to go with it. I preferred the food at Gado Gado, though that’s definitely in a different price point.

Poa Cafe - Came here for brunch on a Sunday. My kids loved the blocks to build with. Had some very good avocado toast, a great breakfast sandwich, and we also loved the blue smoothie. I’d definitely return for the smoothies. Also has a nice outdoor area, though we sat inside.

Hanoi Kitchen - Maybe we were there on an off day, but we were sadly not impressed. The banh cuon tasted like they had been microwaved, and the fried spring rolls were thick and super disappointing (tasted like they’d been commercially purchased at Hong Phat). The pho ended up being the best of what we ordered, though it was only so-so. We had read much better reviews so it was disappointing.

Pho Van - We ordered takeout crispy fried catfish, and they did a pretty good job. Came with herbs and noodles and rice paper wrappers. We also had some good fried egg rolls and maybe another dish or two that weren’t very memorable because I don’t remember them!

I think there are more places, but that’s all I have time to write about now! Hope this is interesting/useful to someone

Goat cheese and leek croissants, be still my heart!!

@mods can you add OR to the tiitle please, we have a Portland in ME too.

Thanks for these reviews. I like the north tabor area and will try hit a few next summer. Here are some other places (mostly) nearby we like if you haven’t been.

For Vietnamese, try Paper Bridge. North Vietnamese with some dishes you don’t often see in Portland. James Beard award winning chef Vince Nguyen’s Berlu bakery has nice take on Vietnamese desserts and always some savory specials.

Wajan does Javanese dishes primarily and it is a region of Indonesia known for heavier, sweeter and more oily dishes than other regions.

Not too far away on 82nd is Kirribaa, a very good yucantan restaurant that has garnered a lot of plaudits.

One of fav places in the city is Astral, inside duality brewing in Kerns. They do Mexican-PNW mashup dishes with high creativity and product quality.

Big’s chicken on 44th and Glisan does great grilled and fried chicken in something of a sw style with interesting sides and sauces.

Apizza Scholls is not as close as Oly but not that far either on Hawthorne.

We were at Alma in August so no problem with lighting. Some dishes were great, especially grills and dips. The happy hour offerings were good in this department. Some of the more composed dishes were underwhelming.

Thanks for the reply – a lot of these sound good.

I’ve heard about Paper Bridge, but now thanks to the NYT it’s hard to get a table there! Will eventually make it.

I’ve had things from Berlu and liked it quite a lot – the cakes/pastries I had are not too sweet, which I enjoyed. Some other bakeries I’ve liked are Sparrow in St Johns (had the cardamom ocean roll), Mt. Tabor Bread (had a variety of good things), Twisted Bakery (also had a variety of filled croissants) and Annie’s Donuts (I liked the gingerbread donut).

You might try Pasar on Alberta, the second restaurant from Wajan. Different food “market stall” I think is how they put it. Lots of delicious small plates. We especially loved the Lontong Cap Go Mei which seems to be a different version than the ones that pop up when you Google the dish. The broth was similar to the laksa broth (the coconut/shrimp version). Definitely a must! I loved Paper Bridge too.

Also, Kachka Fabrika was very delicious!

I liked Fabrika a lot, but price quality ratio was not as good as the original. I was always impressed that Katchka could deliver high quality dishes at reasonable prices. Fabrika is a bit expensive given portion size. But it’s less cramped and they have a great cocktail menu.

I tried a chocolate-almond croissant at Nuvrei today, since I’m gradually trying every bakery on this Eater list:

It was just OK, maybe too much almond and couldn’t really tell what the pastry was like. The drip coffee was really good though.

I major bakery discovery for me was Brewers Bread on Vaughan – OK, not near Mt. Tabor. Really good sourdough breads, including the best baguette I’ve had in Portland; it edges out Little T. (But get T’s ficelle.) And Brewers is just a few doors down from Bing Mi, with its outstanding jianbing.

Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll definitely try it, and also Bing Mi is already on my list to try too

I’ll have to try it when I’m back in town. Breads look great.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve tried some new places that were good! I never really know if I should start a new thread or just reply here (preferences?)

Chi Em MeKha Grill (on SE Division)-- We ordered takeout from here last week, and it was surprisingly good. We ordered both meatball and chicken pho, which appeared to both come with the same (beef) broth. The broth was perhaps the best I’ve had in Portland – not too much salt or MSG. The meatballs seemed homemade (sliced up from very large meatballs) and were good. We ordered banh xeo that remained quite crispy despite the travel time – very impressive. We also enjoyed some fresh spring rolls, and perhaps most of all, the Bánh Tầm, which we actually ordered with tofu instead of pork. This is a dish from Southern Vietnam that we don’t frequently see in restaurants in the USA, and it’s one of my favorites. Sort of like a vermicelli bowl, but with thicker noodles and a coconut sauce added. I would like to try the pork version next time. Finally, we got a papaya salad which was more similar to Thai style, and was decent.

Bamboo House (SE Hawthorne) - We ordered some fried egg rolls here for a party. We ordered a tray with 30 pieces (for $60). I wanted to order half vegetarian and half meat, and in order to do this, I had to call through the restaurant as opposed to ordering online. I ordered two days in advance, and the egg rolls were very good! Packaged up with plenty of sauce for dipping, plus lettuce for wrapping (but no herbs).

An Xuyên Bakery - Stopped by here to buy some desserts. We had the black sesame peanut mochi donuts, which were a dramatic black color, and not overly sweet. Really different (sort of reminded me of a sesame ball w/ red bean, except these were more spongelike, had no filling, and were very black. Also had some flaky/crumbly guava cookies which were OK.

Foodie Mumbhaiya - One of the food carts at Foster Food Carts, we ordered a plain dosa and the bhel puri. The dosa was fine, but made in a regular pan and not that special. But it came with two nice chutneys (one coconut/cilantro, another that I couldn’t quite place). The bhel puri was large (in size) and really good. Crispy, nice balance of textures and flavors. They asked how spicy I wanted it, and I said not too spicy, but this was still quite spicy for me. But was really great. Best chaat I’ve had in a long time, and I’m excited to go back and try more.

Tusk - We went out for a fancier date night to Tusk, and had a great experience overall. We got the set menu for $55 per person, which included quite a lot of tastes. Some things were great, particularly the salads and a crumbled feta appetizer. Hummus was nice too. We chose the eggplant as our main entree, which meant that our entire meal was vegetarian. Another great dish was a cold side of potatoes with crispy lentils and avocado. The only real misses were a carrot dish that was way too cumin-ey and salty, and on the eggplant dish, one of the pieces of eggplant was undercooked. Overall, I thought this place was a good deal for $55 per person, and is a wonderful choice if you want a nice meal w/ a vegetarian.

Sun Rice (N Williams) - Had brunch here, and liked the fish sandwich best of all. The rice dishes w/ longaniza and the loco moco were good but a bit heavy. Nice space, and nice people.

Bake on the Run @ The Heist in Woodstock – Really enjoyed the potato and chickpea curry inside the bake (Guyanese fried bread). Small and satisfying. The Heist is a great food cart pod with a wonderful indoor space, so I imagine we’ll be back there. Also many other options.

Some great spots on this list. Glad you liked Bake on the Run and Tusk.

Tusk happy hour is also a great deal with some of their best dishes on pretty heavy discount if you aren’t up for the tasting menu. The carrots never come off the menu and are one of my fav dishes there. Hoping it was just a one off bad experience.

Huh, are the carrots always that strong tasting? So much salt and cumin! I would have liked just a plain roasted carrot with maybe a nice acidic sauce.

They are strong tasting with cumin but shouldn’t be too salty. The sweetness of the carrot should come through. This is the style of North Africa, I believe.

If they tasted overly salty and not sweet then perhaps the kitchen wasn’t on its best night.

Try the golden hour from 5-6 Sunday - Thursday. They have a lot of their best mezze and other dishes on discount.