The Best Vietnamese Food in Portland OR

Pandan waffles and fish sauce bacon on the same menu sounds like a dare, but this counter-service Vietnamese brunch spot on Alberta Street pulls it off without a second thought. Rice bowls, breakfast burritos, and rotating pastries like matcha cinnamon rolls round out a menu that treats Vietnamese American cooking as brunch's natural home. The Vietnamese iced egg coffee reads as dessert and caffeine simultaneously, which covers two needs at once.

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No website, no Instagram, just a strip mall address and a fan-run page to track the daily rotating soups. Hà VL is a Vietnamese noodle shop where the bowls do all the talking, and the fermented fish noodle soup alone explains why regulars treat the weekly schedule like a train timetable. A 2024 James Beard semifinalist, and the kind of place the New York Times flies someone to Portland specifically to write about.

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A small Vietnamese soup counter in a Southeast Powell strip mall, open each morning until the pots run dry, which happens faster than you'd expect. Two or three soups rotate daily, with Saturday drawing people specifically for the cao lầu, a Hoi An regional noodle dish that rarely makes it this far from home. The Vietnamese iced coffee hits harder than you're ready for. Come early, bring cash, and don't stress the menu because there isn't much of one to stress about.

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The menu at this Northern Vietnamese restaurant annotates each dish with culinary and cultural history, so you'll know why the Dungeness crab spring rolls arrive in the square shape customary to Haiphong. The team makes their own rice noodles, a laborious thing few bother with, for a deep roster of phos and noodle plates. Bring a group so the grilled half-duck makes sense. The New York Times put it on their 2025 Restaurant List.

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This Lents noodle shop is named after its one big move, the spicy beef soup from central Vietnam, and it sees no reason to hedge. The broth runs meaty, shrimpy, and lemongrass-bright, with collagen-heavy cuts, pork blood cubes, and thick, slippery noodles. A plate of banana blossom, basil, mint, and lime arrives for you to dump in. Eater's list of Portland's best restaurants and food carts includes it. Dine in or call ahead.

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The coffee shop on SE Division is painted superhero blue and stocked with Portland Cà Phê beans for Vietnamese-style drinks, pastries from HeyDay next door in the supply chain, and enough vinyl culture in its DNA that the occasional DJ set feels less like an event and more like a Tuesday. The ube coconut cloud, a non-caffeinated iced drink, does a slow cascade inside the glass that will make you stop mid-sip.

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This is a counter-service coffee shop that runs on Vietnamese robusta, the bolder, heavier-hitting cousin of the arabica your usual café leans on. The bánh mì comes stuffed enough that you'll wonder if the menu is a typo, and the seasonal drinks swing from jasmine tea with lychee and blackberry to a passionfruit espresso tonic. It's the rare café where people order lunch first and then remember they also wanted coffee.

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Kita Steak & Ribs is a steakhouse run like a family business, which it is, with grill-dad barbecue given a Vietnamese accent. It began in a Hillsboro strip mall with a short menu and a loyal following packed into very little room, and it has since moved into nicer digs in Beaverton. The menu has grown a bit, but the beef is still the point. Eater lists it among Portland's best restaurants and food carts.

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