Portland’s Best Chinese Food | Portland Monthly
Tasty Corner offers some of the best Sichuan cuisine in town.
While Portland’s Chinese food scene might not have the same nationwide reputation as a place like Los Angeles, to say that Portland doesn’t have good Chinese food—as I’ve heard many declare—means you’re either not looking hard enough, or you’re not looking in the right places. From Beaverton to Happy Valley, you’ll find multiple regions represented. You can get everything from massive spreads of dim sum to comforting bowls of congee to pots of spicy bullfrog—and find a restaurant that’s perfect for any occasion from solo takeout to massive group dinners. Here are our picks.
The eponymous bing mi.
Bing Mi
Northwest District, Downtown
One of the hottest brunch spots in Northwest Portland is Bing Mi, where diners line up for jianbing: handheld Chinese crêpes stuffed with egg, black bean chile sauce, and crispy wonton crackers. One bite in, it’s easy to see what the hubbub is about. The tender crêpe and crackly wonton are a textural delight, and the black bean chile oil is an umami bomb, especially when combined with proteins like duck, bacon, or Chinese sausage. The brick-and-mortar location expands the menu with handmade dumplings and beef noodle soup, while the original food cart, now stationed at the Midtown Beer Garden, sticks with the traditional crêpes.
Casserole and dumplings from Chin’s Kitchen in Hollywood.
Chin’s Kitchen
Hollywood
If the vintage neon sign of this 75-year-old restaurant isn’t enough to draw you in, then the food certainly is. Though the restaurant served Chinese American food originally, chef and owner Wendy Li took over the business in 2017 and overhauled the menu, focusing on the cuisine of the Dongbei region where she grew up. Dumplings are the big draw, each wrapper rolled out by hand for optimal silkiness and stuffed with fillings ranging from pork with Chinese sauerkraut to shrimp with scrambled egg, simply boiled and served with garlicky soy dipping sauce. Beyond that, don’t miss the summer essential la pi, a refreshing cold noodle salad with tangy, spicy dressing and julienned veggies, or the winter must-have casseroles combining the likes of pork belly, sweet potato noodles, and cabbage in hearty bone broth.
Wontons in hot chile oil are a Duck House speciality.
Duck House
Downtown
Usually, Chinese restaurants that offer more than one type of regional cuisine can only nail one of them, leaving the others as an afterthought. That’s not the case at Duck House, the Portland State University–area Chinese restaurant with sports bar vibes and tables full of college kids. The restaurant pulls off everything from Shanghainese xiao long bao to Chinese American honey walnut prawns to fish fillet in spicy Sichuan chile broth with aplomb, particularly nailing dishes reliant on chiles and mala. All that plus cocktails make this an ideal spot for big dinners with friends and family, or for a much-needed dose of comfort food takeout.
A dim sum spread at Excellent Cuisine.
Excellent Cuisine
Montavilla
This relative newcomer to the dim sum scene, which opened in late 2020, excels at both steamer basket standbys and newfangled dishes. Plump ha gow and siu mai roll through the dining room frequently, bulging with juicy shrimp and pork, respectively. But give some of the more creative dishes a try, too, especially the red rice noodle rolls, a springy dumpling of minced shrimp wrapped in a delicately fried, lacy wrapper and rolled in a red, silky rice noodle. The jiggly coconut pudding rabbits and mango pudding ducklings make for a cheerful finish. Dinners involve whole fried crabs fragrant with ginger and scallions and intimidatingly large piles of soy sauce noodles.
HK Cafe is one of Portland’s best dim sum restaurants.
HK Café
Lents
HK Café is a Portland dim sum institution, the biggest of the major teahouses left since Wong’s King and Ocean City shuttered. Grab a table near the kitchen for the best views of what’s hot and fresh out of the kitchen. You can count on solid versions of all the dim sum workhorses here, but particular highlights include the siu mai, the ham sui gok (deep-fried meat dumpling), and pineapple buns.
Egg and clam congees at Master Kong.
Master Kong
Montavilla, Richmond
If you’re not already acquainted with the ultimate Chinese comfort that is congee—ideally finished with a fried stick of dough—this is the best place in town to dive in, now with two Southeast locations. The fried dough here is exceptional, super-crisp and served piping hot with a slightly salty, eggy, and airy interior. The congee, while mild in flavor, is creamy-textured and light, making it a good canvas for proteins like pork spareribs. While soup dumplings here are skippable, the handmade pot stickers are a must-try, with delicate wrappers and crispy, golden–brown bottoms.
Whole fish at Powell Seafood.
Powell Seafood
South Tabor
Even on weeknights, big groups flock to this banquet hall for family-style seafood dinners, loading lazy susans with clams in black bean sauce, earthenware pots of shellfish, and salt-and-pepper squid (and prawns and sole and oysters). Chefs pluck fish from the onsite tanks to steam with soy sauce, ginger, and green onions; it’s a must-have at every table, but the Hong Kong–style fried crab with garlic and the honey walnut prawns are welcome additions, too.
Sichuan City
happy valley
Park in the Happy Valley WinCo lot and head to this strip mall gem, serving a pages-long menu of Sichuan specialties. The most visually striking is the house-special live fish, cut into fillets and served in a wide wooden bucket, floating in yellow chile broth that’s loaded with cabbage, tofu skin, and bean sprouts. But the menu is full of hits: crispy Chongqing chicken, tender cumin lamb, bouncy cold bean jelly, crunchy garlic cucumbers, mashed eggplant with century egg. For best results, go with a big group. It’s a restaurant that rewards revisiting, so you can come back and try more.
Jade Rabbit at Aimsir Distilling
kerns
Sharing the emerald-tiled tasting room at Aimsir Distilling, Jade Rabbit bucks dim sum traditions by forgoing rolling carts—not to mention all animal products. Following in the footsteps of his aunt, who made mock meats for decades in the Bay Area, owner Cyrus Ichiza creates entirely vegan renditions of standards like fluffy steamed bao, juicy siu mai, and even lo mai gai, fragrant parcels of glutinous rice and “chicken” wrapped in lotus leaves. The only animals on the menu are the bunny-shaped dumplings, which land somewhere between Filipino puto pao and the trendy animal-shaped custard bao found at dim sum shops around the world. Here, Ichiza fills them with vegan pork swimming in black garlic-bolstered sweetened soy sauce. Since Jade Rabbit has made its home in Aimsir’s kitchen, the beverage program involves several cocktails with house-made spirits; that being said, Jade Rabbit also offers tea service with an emphasis on oolongs and fermented pu-erh teas.
Sichuan Taste
downtown
This Sichuan restaurant opened downtown in 2022 without much fanfare, but it quickly developed a cult following as one of the central city’s strongest Chinese restaurants. Heat is the way to go here, so start with the super-garlicky mashed eggplant with century egg and peppers, bracingly spicy yet impossible to stop eating. From there, opt for one of the chile broth–based dishes, whether it’s the delicately chopped, bone-in bullfrog with peppers or tender slices of fatty, melt-in-your-mouth beef in golden chile broth.
The famous noodles at Stretch the Noodle.
Stretch the Noodle
downtown
The ultimate office lunchtime treat? A container of steaming hand-pulled noodles from this cart, which draws steady crowds every day. Get the la mian, stretched noodles in homey beef broth, or chao mian with your choice of protein—and if you’re feeling extra peckish, the handmade dumplings, each with a whole shrimp inside (tails poking out playfully) are equally satisfying.
Szechuan Chef
south portland
This Sichuan spot easily flies under the radar—it’s all too easy to drive past it while zipping down South Macadam Ave—but it’s well worth the stop. The giant photo of soup dumplings on the door might give you the impression, and correctly so, that the soup dumplings here are stellar, thin-skinned and full of light, flavorful broth. The saucy ma po tofu, silky fish in piquant chile broth, and dry-fried green beans all demand an order, as well.
Tasty Corner hand shaves its noodles.
Tasty Corner
downtown
One of the newer additions to Portland’s ever-expanding Chinese scene is Tasty Corner in the Portland State University neighborhood, which balances its menu of Chinese American lunch combos with an impressive showing of Sichuan mainstays. Rich, eggy crab roe complement deep-fried shrimp, while lamb spicy dry pot gets a little freshness from cauliflower and celery. Spicy knife-cut noodles are another house specialty here that’s hard to find elsewhere, though while the noodles are delightfully chewy, the seasoning could be kicked up a notch. That’s not the case with the mapo tofu, a saucy, well-balanced pile of bean curd and pork reliant on a pleasingly hot chile oil.
Fortune BBQ Noodle House serves delectable roast duck on 82nd Ave.
Fortune BBQ Noodle House
montavilla
Slabs of roast pork and whole ducks hang in the case of this strip mall Cantonese barbecue spot, where couples share platters of char siu and young parents cut up shrimp wontons into bite-size pieces. Fortune BBQ is a choose your own adventure of meats and vehicles for said meats: Various cuts of pork and poultry appear over rice, in noodle soups, and on their own, paired with plum sauce and seasoned soy. Roast duck is the star here, with beautifully rendered skin the color of hazelnut shells and impossibly juicy meat. It’s best on its own, though you could also a few slabs to a bowl of soup, among a handful of bobbing wontons.
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