These Are Portland's Souper Stars - Willamette Week

Any season, truly, is soup season. There’s no time when an expertly prepared bowl isn’t welcome at the table, especially one with salty and savory broth, al dente noodles and a heap of meat or veggies to make it all come together. In summer, soup will do the trick to make you feel cooler than the sweltering air temperature by helping you break a sweat. But as we all well know, winter is the king of soup seasons, when those ingredients and a warming slurp restore heat and energy to our rain-soaked cores. We’ve fully shifted into soup mode here in Oregon, and this list of noodle-packed Asian soups is your guide to some of the best the Portland area has to offer.

Chicken Paitan Ramen at Kinboshi Ramen

609 SE Ankeny St., Suite A, 503-894-9021, 11 am-8 pm daily.

Any soup you go with at Kinboshi is gonna be a banger. Those who eat plant-based can always count on the vegan shio tonyu ramen, with a rich soy milk-based broth and veggie toppings (go “red” for extra spice and depth). But my go-to warmer is always the rich and comforting chicken paitan.

A substantial chicken-based broth is topped with chasu chicken, vegetables and a soft boiled egg, making for a wholesome bowl that always leaves me feeling satisfied. Kinboshi’s noodles have the perfect thickness and spring, and a sprinkling of shichimi togarashi, or seven spice, gives it just the right kick. Adding an order of Kinboshi’s exemplary karaage shrimp and a side of gyoza for the table is also a classy move.

Pho Oregon Dac Biet at Pho Oregon

2518 NE 82nd Ave., 503-262-8816, 9 am-8 pm daily.

Our city is swimming in incredible Vietnamese soup joints, particularly around 82nd Avenue. There are always great newcomers (Pho Gabo is certainly worth a stop for noodleheads) and excellent long-standing operators (Pho Kim and Pho An Sandy get major props here), but if anyone asks me what my favorite pho is, my answer has been the same for years: the dac biet at Pho Oregon.

Stepping into this massive dining hall on a Sunday morning is spiritual: The tables are packed with everyone from Vietnamese families having a nice breakfast to the hungover in desperate need of sodium and sustenance. If you find yourself in the latter camp, you’ll definitely want the house special pho, which is item No. 1 on the massive menu. It arrives piping hot and filled to the brim with rare round steak, tripe, tendon, meatballs, fatty brisket and flank steak. The noodles are always perfectly done, and the broth has all the right notes of star anise and cinnamon without ever straying sweet. At this point, I may be an old woman set in my ways about the greatness of Pho Oregon, but I can’t think of a better place to be in a soup rut.

Tempura Udon at Obon Shokudo

720 SE Grand Ave., 503-206-7967, 11:30 am-9 pm Wednesday-Monday.

Obon Shokudo (Aaron Lee)

Lunch time is soup time at Obon Shokudo. The only vegan homestyle Japanese restaurant in town, this former farmers market staple opened up on Southeast Grand in the former Kachinka space last year and expanded its menu gloriously. There’s so much to love, from the white miso and garlic-packed onigiri, made with sprouted brown rice, to a homey curry accompanied by crispy breaded-and-fried local Ota tofu. I don’t have enough stomachs to eat everything I want each time I walk through the noren curtains that owners Humiko Hozumi and Jason Duffany have hung in the doorway.

Despite this, more times than not, I return to the tempura udon—thick handmade noodles that contain the right amount of satisfying spring, in an umami-packed, soy-mushroom broth. On top are fried tofu, scallions and a raft of kakiage, a deep-fried fritter and traditional udon topping with onions and cabbage that softens in the broth while still offering some surprise crunch down to the bottom of the bowl. It’s soup season, so now’s your call to service.

Hot Pot at Happy Lamb Hot Pot

3861 SW 117th Ave., Suite A, Beaverton, 971-238-9798. 11:30 am-2:30 pm and 5-9:30 pm Monday-Thursday, 11:30 am-2:30 pm and 5-10 pm Friday, 11:30 am-10 pm Saturday, 11:30 am-9:30 pm Sunday.

The first rule at Happy Lamb Hot Pot is to wear stretchy pants. That’s because this is an all-you-can-eat affair, one where your crew will inevitably start by frantically ordering all of the amazing-sounding options, only to wind up at the end exhaustedly but earnestly still pulling pork dumplings and pumpkin out of the pot.

Hot pot is a communal experience in which diners are presented raw ingredients that are then added to a bubbling cauldron at the center of the table. There are several broth choices, but go with the Half & Half, a combination of spicy and the house original, which is an herbaceous base of rich beef stock laden with cardamom pods. Meats like New Zealand lamb meatballs and thin-sliced pork, along with items like fish cakes and tofu skins, are a must, but don’t skimp on the veggies—king oyster mushrooms, napa cabbage and broccoli absorb the flavors of the broth and make it really special. A cold beer and an order of better-than-expected chicken wings round out the whole event nicely.

Phnom Penh Noodles at Sunshine Noodles

2175 NW Raleigh St., Suite 105, 971-220-1997, 5-9 pm Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Sunshine Noodles has been in its Slabtown home for about a year now, but it feels like it has been a part of our noodle soup universe for much longer. You can think of the restaurant as chef Diane Lam’s personal playground, where she revisits and reinvents food from her Cambodian-California upbringing.

The menu consists of ever-rotating curries, soups and spring rolls with constantly updated fillings, like blackened catfish. But you can always count on the presence of the house special, phnom penh noodles. Lacquered egg noodles are sourced from El Monte, Calif. (“the next city over” from Lam’s hometown), and served with pork wontons, shrimp, ground pork and crispy wonton skins. Add a dash of the housemade chile oil, which is more smoky than hot, and mix well with your pastel chopsticks before slurping away. Lam, known to host after-hours parties at Sunshine from time to time, also takes the bar program seriously, so this is the place to pair your soup with a killer cocktail inside a place that is buzzing with ambience.

Khao Soi at RukDiew Cafe

2534 SE Belmont St., 503-841-6123, 11:30 am-3 pm and 4:30-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 11:30 am-3 pm and 4:30-9:30 pm Friday, noon-9:30 pm Saturday, noon-9 pm Sunday.

With its baby pink-dominant décor, polka-dotted plates and cute framed wall art, it could be easy to dismiss this relatively new Thai restaurant as nothing but fluff. But all of RukDiew’s dishes, and its khao soi soup in particular, have a lot of depth.

This Northern Thai dish is on a handful of menus around town, but RukDiew’s version takes the crown. The rich, red curry broth has just enough spice to mean business, however, its heat level isn’t overwhelming enough to slow the pace of your slurping. Add a chicken leg, the traditional accompaniment, cooked here until it’s falling-off-the-bone tender, and get extra pickled shallots on the side to help cut the richness. RukDiew serves its khao soi with a raft of crispy noodles on top; slowly blend them into the broth for an incredible textural boost.

Cao Lau at Rose VL Deli

6424 SE Powell Blvd., 503-206-4344. 8:30 am-4 pm Monday-Saturday. Cao lau available on Saturday only.

If I can impart one bit of wisdom to anyone reading this: If you like noodle soups and haven’t been to Rose VL (or its sister restaurant Ha VL), GO. RIGHT. NOW.

Both Rose VL and Ha VL are famous for serving locally lesser-seen and perfectly executed Vietnamese soups, usually two a day, until they sell out. Favorites like crab flake soup, peppery pork ball soup, and fermented fish noodle soup all get their assigned day, and if you miss it, you have to wait an entire week for it to reappear. In 2018, owners Ha (Christina) Luu and her husband William Vuong snuck a third Saturday soup onto the menu: cao lau.

Rarely seen outside of the Central Vietnam coast city of Hoi An, where I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying it, cao lau is a dish of thick, udonlike rice noodles piled with herbs, pork and chicken, with crispy shallots, peanuts and wontons all adding crunch. Mix it around to blend the ingredients with a thick, slightly sweet sauce, and slurp the bowl of rich broth on the side. Throw in an order of the shrimp-and-pork salad rolls, whose sweetness comes from thinly sliced red bell peppers, and a Vietnamese coffee, and you’ve got yourself a nice little Saturday afternoon meal.

Wonton Noodle Soup at Mama Chow’s Kitchen

2415 SE 35th Place, 11:30 am-3 pm Tuesday-Saturday.

One of the first reviews I wrote as a baby food critic in 2014 was of Mama Chow’s, which had recently opened downtown. Owner Jeff Chow had just four items on his menu. I loved his wonton soup then, and after eight years of reaching for this hearty bowl of garlic-laced broth, laden with egg noodles, succulent pork and shrimp wontons and just enough baby bok choy to make it feel like a healthy choice, it’s now part of my family.

Chow, who hails from the Bay Area, handmakes his dumplings, which are also available with chicken, folding them by hand before they’re plopped into the soup. Add fried garlic and chile oil, and enjoy while still piping hot. After years at Southwest 2nd Avenue and Harvey Milk Street, Mama Chow’s was preparing in fall to move to its new location: Farmhouse Carts in the Richmond neighborhood. I’ll be following right behind.

Haemul Yukgaejang at Always Spring Restaurant

Inside G Mart at 3975 SW 114th Ave., Beaverton, 503-641-3670, 10:30 am-8 pm Monday-Saturday.

Located in a tucked-away space on the second floor of Beaverton Korean supermarket G Mart, Always Spring often has a wait. And no wonder: There’s all manner of piping hot, chile-laden Korean goodness inside this store.

There are dozens and dozens of options here—I tend to favor the duk mandu guk, a mild soup filled with sliced rice cake and dumplings, then topped off with ample beef, egg and scallions. But we’re here for noodles, and in this case, Always Spring has haemul yukgaejang: a vermillion-hued seafood soup with especially fat shrimp, bean sprouts, bracken, leeks and egg, all over a pile of glass noodles. Complete your meal with steamed mandu dumplings, haemul pajeon (the famous seafood pancake with green onions), and a solid bibimbap. Also, make sure you’ve got plenty of water nearby to cool your jets—that seafood soup is spicy.

This article appears in WW’s Oregon Winter Magazine, available for free all over Portland. See where to pick one up at this link.

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