The Best Takeout Restaurants in Portland
Takeout from Frank’s Noodle House should always include an order of its famous chewy, bouncy noodles.
Years ago, takeout was an afterthought for many Portland restaurants. The dining room—with servers refilling water glasses and bread baskets, the chance to bump into friends—was a crucial part of the experience. Then, COVID-19 went and ruined the party, to put it mildly. Suddenly, dining rooms closed, and the word “pivot” was thrown around so much it lost meaning. Restaurants rushed to get their food out any way they could, with places that previously never offered a takeout option suddenly being forced to offer only that.
When customers trickled back into dining rooms, takeout options ebbed, but not to their prepandemic levels. Today there are far more options for taking your food to go, as many Portlanders still struggle to find time for a seated dinner, or just prefer to eat at home without turning on the stove. It rarely even takes a phone call, as many restaurants sport takeout order forms on their websites. Whether it’s a time-honored tradition of Friday night pizza or a few boxes of Chinese food, or taking home a favorite dish previously only available in-house, here are our favorite ways to get takeout in Portland. If you’re looking for options like tacos or burgers, we have dedicated lists for those, too.
Scottie’s pizza, round or square, always travels well.
Pizza
Eminently portable, crowd-pleasing, and (relatively) affordable, pizza has been the American go-to for delivery and takeout for decades. Portland has more than its share of stellar options, but many of our favorite pies are best enjoyed straight out of a wood-fired oven (see: Grana, Ken’s Artisan Pizza, Gracie’s Apizza, and Lovely’s Fifty-Fifty). Those looking for a pizza they can take home to a board game or movie night will be better served by sturdier pies, however. Scottie’s uses a super-hot electric oven that ensures a robust crust even after a car ride. The thick, rectangular base of Ranch’s Sicilian-esque and Pop Pizza’s Detroit pies are practically made for takeout. But it’s hard to go wrong with many in the New York–style pizza realm: Pizza Thief, Pizza Jerk (which offers vegan and gluten-free versions), Baby Doll, Paladin Pie, and Meta Pizza all travel relatively well, too.
Phaya Thai brings khao gaeng dining to SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Thai Food
Oyster pails—those iconic white and red paper origami boxes of Chinese American restaurants—are synonymous with takeout, but Rose City residents are more likely to have stacks of plastic containers from their favorite Thai food haunts. Like pizza, some Thai food calls for a proper sit-down—you can’t take Langbaan home, of course. Instead, stick to curries and stir-fries: Sunnyside’s Rukdiew serves things like sweet-hot “mango paradise” with chile jam, pick-a-protein curries (the red has big slices of eggplant), and an array of solid fried rice dishes. The fried crab and trout, optional toppings for the pad thai, are better enjoyed in-house.
Despite its spacious dining room and patio, Phaya Thai is modeled after Thailand’s khao gaeng style of takeout dining, and serves most of its meals in partitioned plastic containers to hurried diners. Zaap Thai is a favorite for its convenient location on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and its high level of spice (a medium here is a hot in many other spots). We love the springy egg noodles at Ba Mee Thai, especially when slicked with BBQ sauce and topped with roast duck or pork belly. Unwrapping a parcel from Nong’s Khao Man Gai and seeing the steam billow up from the poached chicken and rice is a Portland culinary rite of passage. And while neither Langbaan nor its casual counterpart Phuket Cafe is transportable, their sister restaurant across the river, Paadee, certainly is, especially its lunch sets.
Tasty Corner’s hand-cut noodles can get downright incendiary.
Chinese Food
The consummate takeout option for American households, Portland’s once-modest Chinese food scene has grown year over year. Save the dim sum and hot pot for the dining room and stick to stir-fries, noodle dishes, and other more portable items. Heat seekers have a few options downtown, like the scintillating, crimson-hued mapo tofu and hand-sliced noodles at Tasty Corner, or the mashed eggplant with preserved century egg at Sichuan Taste. Noodle lovers have citywide choices: the chewy, hand-pulled noodles at Frank’s Noodle House; the heartening, cold-battling dumpling soups at Kenny’s Noodle House; and the thin, delicate egg noodles from Fortune BBQ Noodle House, whether they’re in soups or topped with crispy roast duck and hoisin sauce. And for a quick lunch, it’s hard to beat the jianbing from Bing Mi, eggy crêpes stuffed with crispy wontons and black bean chile sauce. More into Chinese American staples like lo mein or General Tso’s? Shandong in Hollywood is a standout.
Luc Lac is a consummate late-night destination for takeout or dining in.
Vietnamese Food
Those less familiar may hear “Vietnamese food” and think pho, a food that does not particularly travel well. But consider the banh mi, bún thịt nướng (the vermicelli noodle bowl), cơm tấm (broken rice)—generally, Vietnamese takeout works exceptionally well for a quick, produce-packed, colorful meal for one. Still, see what happens when you bring a platter of gỏi cuốn (salad rolls) or fish sauce wings to a party. Lúa on Williams often attracts twentysomethings popping in for tangles of vermicelli topped with lemongrass chicken or roast pork, but it’s also a great spot for meals to share. Anyone looking for a last-minute potluck dish can order catering-size portions of nem nướng (grilled Vietnamese pork sausage), fish sauce wings, bò lá lốt (parcels of grilled betel leaf–wrapped beef), and five spice–slow roasted pork belly by the pound, to serve with mega-portions of rice, noodles, or bánh hỏi, little woven sheets of rice noodles you fill and eat in little handheld wraps. Be sure to add a few extra orders of xà lách, a fish sauce–dressed salad, or some salad rolls.
Luc Lac’s takeout window downtown makes it an easy stop for workers grabbing lunch to bring back to their desk or a quick-and-easy dinner to take home. Snacky options abound here—chicken wings, charbroiled meat skewers, spring rolls and salad rolls—as well as stalwarts like banh mi, bún, and com tam. On the other side of town, Bui’s Natural Tofu is also a classic lunch stop for things like pork-stuffed steam cakes (bánh chưng), bánh cuốn (steamed rice rolls), salad rolls, and chewy colorful sweets for dessert.
Rangoon Bistro’s big pork dumpling is a meal all on its own.
Filipino, Malaysian, and Other Southeast Asian Cuisines
Portland’s showing of Southeast Asian cuisine has never been stronger. From both of Rangoon Bistro’s locations, Malaysian-style fried chicken stays crisp and crunchy even after a car ride, and the Burmese tea leaf salads are inherently well-suited to travel, as is the oversize pork dumpling, a favorite cheap eat of ours. You can even bring home the restaurant’s fun cocktails, like a cardamom-infused Negroni or lime leaf gin and tonic. While the fritters and satays at the Indonesian restaurant Wajan should be enjoyed in its colorful, wood-paneled dining room, the rest of its dishes—like the assorted rice platter with tempeh, veggies, and deep-fried, chile sauce–glazed egg—can be enjoyed right out of the box at home. And Foster Powell residents have long frequented the Filipino restaurant Tambayan for its combo meals with garlic rice, egg, and a choice of main from items like longanisa and tapsilog.
Mirisata’s vegan Sri Lankan cuisine travels exceptionally well.
Indian and Other South Asian Food
Northwest Portland’s Kashmiri restaurant Bhuna serves rice (or salad) bowls with curries like the Chettinad chicken, rich with tomato and coconut milk, or the lamb rogan josh, aromatic with yogurt, clove, and cardamom. On Belmont, the worker-owned vegan Sri Lankan hot spot Mirisata began as a takeout only restaurant in 2020. On the menu: meals that serve one, two-to-three, or four-to-five. They include whatever rapturous curry is on the menu that day, plus yellow rice, dahl, an array of housemade condiments, including a spicy sweet tamarind sambal and acharu, mustardy pickled papaya and carrot.
Family Meals
There are those evenings when you don’t have the time or energy to throw together a meal that serves the whole family. While you could go around the room taking individual requests, sometimes it’s easier to order one thing that serves the whole gang. Portland has several options to cover that need (and we’re not talking pizza): For nearly 30 years, Hoda’s has served its Lebanese dishes to the Sunnyside neighborhood, and offers group meals, mezze spreads and “family packs” served with hummus and pita, like a chicken shawarma package and a vegan falafel special. Big’s Chicken, from chef Ben Bettinger, specializes in Alabama-style smoked chicken; you’ll find a whole bird grilled or fried in its family meal, plus a salad and two large sides, one of which should be the restaurant’s thick, golden jojos. And those who don’t mind a little work can find make-your-own taco feasts from Taqueria Los Puñales. They serve either four or six and come with two guisados, rice, beans, tortillas, and limes—you can also find margarita mixes; all you need is tequila (or mezcal).
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