Here’s a list of my favorite places to eat in Portland, Oregon, organized by country or region.
BULGARIA
The Bulgarian Job: A bright yellow food cart run by Ilin and Boris Georgiev, two brothers with a passion for sharing Bulgarian culture, food, and history. Check out this post to learn more.
Top left: Shopska Salata—a Bulgarian national dish made with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers, parsley, olive oil, and sirene (Bulgarian brined white cheese). Bottom left: Mixed olives sautéed with spices, red pepper, and garlic. Right: Fire Roasted Djob—a bread pocket stuffed with roasted red pepper and sirene, served with crispy fries.
CAMBODIA/LAOS
Mekong Bistro: A Cambodian-Laotian restaurant, family business, and vibrant gathering space featuring a concert area and dance floor. Check out this fantastic article by Elizabeth Mehren to learn more about Saron Khut, the owner of Mekong Bistro and founder of the Mekong River Band, and his incredible story and commitment to building community.
Som-Lar Maju Kreung: A Cambodian sour soup with ong choy (water spinach), tofu, and a homemade blend of herbs and spices.
COLOMBIA
Que Bacano: A Colombian food cart (and member of the Portland Mercado) that expanded into a brick-and-mortar restaurant on SE Hawthorne Blvd in 2020. The name comes from a Colombian slang term referring to something cool, nice, hip, or radical. Click here to learn more about the former dentist-turned-owner Andres Felipe Perez and his business.
Vegetarian Paisita (a spin on the classic Colombian Bandeja Paisa) with beans, rice, plantains, avocado, two fried eggs, and an arepa.
COSTA RICA
La Carreta Pura Vida: A delightful family business serving up vibrant Costa Rican fare inside the Pine Street Market in Old Town. Check out this post to read more about co-owners Alvin Pérez and Liliana Gaitán and the story behind their business.
A vegetarian take on the beloved Costa Rican Casado, featuring rice, beans, salad, plantains, pico de gallo, panela cheese, and eggs.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Patience S Cuisine: A small but welcoming Congolese joint that opened in Old Town in June 2024. Head here to learn more about how Patience, the incredible one-woman force behind the business, reclaimed her relationship with food and is using Congolese cuisine to share her culture and build community.
Top left: Madesu (tender beans cooked in a savory sauce and garnished with fresh herbs); bottom left: Makemba (fried plantains); top right to bottom right: Kpadamu (groundnut soup), Pondu (cassava leaves simmered with peanut butter and palm oil), and Nkovi (collard greens cooked with peanut butter).
GUYANA
Bake on the Run: The first and only food cart serving Guyanese food on the West Coast. Founded by mother-and-son duo Bibi and Michael Singh, Bake on the Run opened in September 2018 and is part of the WonderLove Food Cart Pod. Check out this link to learn more about their story and menu.
Top left: Bake (semisweet Guyanese puff bread) with Guyanese Chana Aloo (chickpea potato curry). Top right: Bake with pumpkin butter. Bottom: Chef Bibi’s Guyanese Vegan Chow Mein (made with award-winning noodles imported from Guyana).
JAPAN
Obon Shokudo: A cozy spot in Portland’s Central Eastside offering plant-based Japanese comfort food. Check out this post to learn more about co-owners Humiko Hozumi and Jason Duffany.
The Combo: Two onigiri (nukazuke pickled ginger & carrot, and Buddha’s hand with hominy miso), one giant panko-crusted tater tot, one curried korokke (a mixture of Japanese sweet potatoes, raisins, and curry spices, coated with panko breadcrumbs and fried to perfection), one kakiage (a savory fritter made with onions, cabbage, and seasonal ingredients), and a small side salad with sesame dressing.
NEW ZEALAND
Nico’s Ice Cream: A business serving New Zealand-style ice cream (real fruit blended with vanilla ice cream) at two locations in Portland and two in California. Check out their website for more information.
Nico’s Real Fruit Marionberry Ice Cream: A creamy blend of Oregon marionberries and vanilla ice cream.
NORWAY
Viking Soul Food: A wonderful restaurant in Portland’s Woodstock neighborhood serving innovative Pacific Northwest-meets-Nordic cuisine. Click here to read more about co-owners Megan and Jeremy and the story behind their business.
Left: Troll Snack (roasted garlic and Jarlsberg cheese spread on rye crackers, garnished with surkal—sweet and sour purple cabbage pickled with apple cider vinegar and caraway). Right: Lefse (Norwegian flatbread made with potatoes) wrap with homemade mushroom and hazelnut patties, toasted hazelnuts, Danish blue cheese, surkal, mild greens, and parsley vinaigrette.
SRI LANKA
Mirisata: A BIPOC/worker-owned, vegan, and tipless Sri Lankan restaurant on SE Belmont. The name can loosely be translated from Sinhala (one of Sri Lanka’s two official languages) as ‘spicy curry.’ Check out their website for more information.
Rotating Rice and Curry Plate with pumpkin curry, tempered long beans, deviled potatoes, cucumber sambol, and pol sambol (a Sri Lankan condiment made with grated coconut, chilis, onions, and lime), served on a banana leaf. Always accompanied by Parippu (Sri Lankan lentil dahl curry), Kaha Bath (yellow rice), and Papadam (crispy lentil flour cracker).
SWITZERLAND
Swiss Hibiscus: A cozy restaurant in the Alberta Arts District serving Swiss classics like fondue and Spätzli (Swiss-style pasta). The name pays homage to the restaurant’s Swiss-Hawaiian heritage, which you can read about here.
Vegan lentil stew with vegan rösti (Swiss-style hash brown).
VENEZUELA
El Salto PDX: A vibrant Latina-owned food cart specializing in vegan Venezuelan fare. The name refers to El Salto Ángel (Angel Falls), the world’s tallest uninterrupted waterfall, located in Venezuela’s Canaima National Park. Check out this post to learn more about the business and owners, Paola and Pablo Cruz.
A vegan take on the Venezuelan dish Arepa Reina Pepiada with homemade chickpea poyo, garlic aioli, and creamy avocado. Also pictured: sweet plantains and guasacaca (a zesty, creamy Venezuelan green sauce made with cilantro and peppers).
Inside Patience S Cuisine, a cozy space with warm wooden accents and colorful artwork
I’m not a huge fan of the phrase “things just aren’t meant to be,” but it sure felt relevant as I frantically speed-walked to the downtown Portland Police Bureau on a rainy Thursday afternoon in November. Let me explain.
For every city I visit, I take the United Nations list of Member States and look up some version of the formula ‘country + restaurant + city.’ Having never tried food from Belize, I was particularly excited when Love Belizean in downtown Portland popped up during my research.
I first tried visiting the restaurant on Veterans Day, but sadly, despite what Google Maps told me, it was closed. The second time, they were sold out. The third time, on my way from the bus to the restaurant (a path I knew all too well thanks to my failed prior attempts), I saw something that caught my eye. I reached into my pocket to take a picture with my phone. Except my phone wasn’t there.
By the time I retrieved my phone—from a very kind lawyer who interrogated my mother (thank you, Mom, for thinking to call my number!) to ensure she wasn’t a thief or scammer—the restaurant was closed, which convinced me that the third time, alas, is not a charm.
Fortunately, though, my beloved formula had helped me locate plenty of other interesting places, including Patience S Cuisine, a Congolese joint that happened to be open and located in roughly the same area.
The exterior of Patience S Cuisine, located in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood
When I got to the restaurant, I was famished and frazzled. As I was perusing the menu, I shared my misadventures with the owner, Patience Sema Tshokote, and we immediately bonded over our shared struggles with losing things (unlike me, though, she wisely keeps her phone on a lanyard around her neck!).
Given how hungry I was and that I’d never had Congolese cuisine before, I decided to order a selection of vegetarian dishes: Kpadamu (groundnut soup), Pondu (cassava leaves simmered with peanut butter and palm oil), Nkovi (collard greens cooked with peanut butter), Madesu (tender beans cooked in a savory sauce and garnished with fresh herbs), and Makemba (fried plantains). Patience also gave me some of her homemade hot sauce on the side, although all of the dishes were plenty flavorful on their own. I loved the creaminess of the greens and the heartiness of the beans, but as someone who will happily eat peanut butter straight from the jar, my favorite was definitely the Kpadamu.
From top to bottom: Kpadamu (groundnut soup), Pondu (cassava leaves with peanut butter and palm oil), and Nkovi (collard greens with peanut butter)Madesu (tender beans cooked in a savory sauce and garnished with fresh herbs)Makemba (fried plantains)
After savoring my delicious, nourishing meal and packing up my leftovers, I asked Patience about what brought her to Portland and how she got into the restaurant business. Because the information she shared with me is very vulnerable and personal in nature, I felt that it was important to use her words rather than my own. The transcription below was reviewed and approved by Patience prior to publication.
Patience’s Story, In Her Own Words
I came here in the mid-90s. I came with my family, my mom and dad. I have 3 brothers and 1 sister, but I lost my older brother back in 2018. I came at the age of 16, going on 17. Before I came here, my mom came in 1989; she left me back home with her family members. I was maybe about 9 or 10, but I went through a lot of abuse, like all kinds of abuse that a person can really go through at that age, which, you know, I lived through it. But one of the traumas that I had was around food. So if I was to get punished, they would withhold food from me, but I would be the one to cook or assist with cooking and serving, and then the punishment was to sit there and watch people eat. There [was] harsh punishment, even for the littlest things, so I grew detached from food.
Coming here, I was almost 17, weighing 98 pounds. I was really frail, I was skinny, so I got here, and the food was horrific to me because it was not what I was used to, and everything is processed. And so I would eat and throw up, and I was so sick for the longest time. I was so tiny, and I never reached 150 [pounds]; even during my pregnancy I only weighed 149 [pounds].
Then my insecurity with food grew, but it kind of changed once we started getting more Asian stores bringing [ingredients] like cassava leaves. And then I learned there were collard greens because I didn’t know what it was called here, so I would look for it everywhere. But then I found out that’s what we call Nkovi back home, and we cook it differently. So then we started noticing there were plantains coming in, sweet potatoes and potato leaves, and all those things, so I started feeling like home again. So I was like, ‘okay, this is time for me to cook,’ so I started cooking.
Top left: Madesu; bottom left: Makemba; top right to bottom right: Kpadamu, Pondu, and Nkovi
I started selling food from my garage because my friends were like, ‘We eat here all the time, [we] think you need to start charging us,’ and I thought that was a good idea. So then I started.
Also, I was a single mom for a very long time. My daughter is 23 now, but it was a rough situation. My baby daddy, my first husband, tried to kill me when my daughter was 6 months old, so I fled.
I’ve lived through all kinds of situations, and that’s why I’m trying to thrive: so I can give some women [a] voice after what I’ve gone through, girls who might still be experiencing it. Me cooking, honestly, is just trying to get out of my trauma, trying to have an outlet. My cooking is the joy of my life right now; it’s really my passion.
And then I do want to have a nonprofit starting here to help girls and boys who are on the street back home or who are being neglected by family members, because a lot of people will say, ‘Oh, I’m going to the United States or I’m going to Belgium, I’ll send for my kids,’ and those kids stay in the neighbors’ homes, and sometimes [the neighbors] kick them out, and then they start living on the street. And you see a 9, 10-year-old girl doing things for money, things a little child shouldn’t have to be doing, which is really devastating. And so I want to be able to use my cooking as a way to show those people that there’s hope. If I can make them smile one day, at least that one day will count.
It’s an interesting life story or experience that I’ve had, but I definitely don’t want to dwell on it. I want to be able to help my community or any community that would be in need of help.
Aside from here, I work in the building down the street as a med tech. I worked for IRCO for 6 years as a domestic violence program coordinator, but then vicarious trauma got me. But I love working in the community. I love working with people. I love helping people make good decisions and making a difference in people’s lives.
About Patience S Cuisine
Located in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood, Patience S Cuisine opened in June 2024. The small but welcoming restaurant combines warm wooden accents with vibrant colors and artifacts from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From sweet treats and hearty stews to grilled meats and tender greens, the menu features authentic Congolese dishes made with locally sourced, seasonal ingredients.
Traditional Congolese artifacts displayed inside Patience S CuisineA colorful, vibrant painting adorning the walls of Patience S Cuisine
While you can certainly order delivery or takeout, I highly recommend visiting the restaurant in person to meet Patience herself. Not only is she incredibly driven and hardworking—cooking, cleaning, marketing, and managing the restaurant on her own every Thursday through Saturday, while also working 16-hour med tech shifts the rest of the week, with Sunday as her only day off—but she also loves sharing Congolese culture and hospitality with the community.
Market Hauls and Local Noms 