Mekong Bistro

Cambodian food is rare to find but this place does some justice. Very unique flavors and styles of food!

This is a relatively undiscovered gem. The food is more interesting (and cheaper) than tons of other PDX restaurants. Get the Cambodian dishes — they are fascinating. The flavors are different from any other cuisines, and they’re delicious. This place deserves soooo much more press and attention. If it were in a trendy area, it would be packed and people would be raving about it. It’s hard to find a ‘new’, interesting cuisine in PDX’s food-​packed environment, but this is it.

Long wait for food and water! I asked if the dish I was ordering was gluten free, the waitress said it was, but I don’t think it was, honestly. Food seemed to be a bit over priced and our appetizer came out after all of us finished our entrees!

Excellent food and very friendly staff. Tonight I got the #26 Fryed Glass Noodles. The food here is always good and there is plenty of beers to choose from. The bar is really nice too with two big screens that always have sports playing. 5 stars hands down!

I dream of Mekong Bistro! This is a quaint, non-​fancy restaurant that just gives you amazing food. The front of their menu says their «mama», late 60 year old mother, makes all their spices and sauces every morning. I believe it because the aroma and flavor of their dishes are phenomenal. We have driven over 3 hours to visit Portland and will come here for dinner.
My personal favorite is the Boat Noodle Soup. It’s best described as phở on LSD. It’s richer, deeper and more intense beef flavor than phở could ever dream of. The soup has beef slices, beef meatballs, tripe and watercress in a rich garlic, beef broth.
Hubby tried the kao soi. He said quote «it’s like Heaven and Hell» because it’s sooo good but it’s soooo spicy. He’s been to Cambodia and said this is the real deal. He can eat 5 star Thai food with no problem and I was watching his entire face sweat. He kept wiping his face with his tissue and saying how good it was.
We also tried their lettuce wrap as the appetizer. I’d skip it. It was super soupy and the sauce was mainly the sweet Asian chili sauce. Not bad but nothing we’d order again.
On a previous visit, we tried their chicken and green beans stir-​fry and the Boat Noodle soup. Again, that’s when we got hooked. So so good! We hope to come back every time we visit Portland.

They’re going to be seeing a lot of me, from now on. This is a very traditional restaurant that takes you seriously when you ask for it ‘extra spicy’. The papaya salad was absolutely perfect and the egg rolls are delicious with the sauce. Make sure to get the sticky rice and a Thai iced tea.
If you’re looking for traditional, ignore the Thai side of the menu and go Cambodian.

We stopped by for a late night bite. We saw the reviews on Unilocal and saw good things. Whe walked in at 1230 am and asked if it was still open, she said yes and prompted to sit us. She told us that she was thinking about closing early and we offered to do take out. We did not mind at all. She gave us food and night life recommendations. Very nice. The food was neatly packed and delicious. Would like to go back and try the catfish before i leave Portland.

The area itself and people of the area can be somewhat sketch. Not somewhere I’d come alone. The ambiance of the place isn’t that great either.
The food at this place is delicious but I went to sleep and woke up extremely thirsty. If this generally doesn’t happen to you, you should definitely come here. If you’re sensitive like I am, I’d pass.

Mekong is Portland’s only Cambodian restaurant and you’d be best served by sticking to their Cambodian dishes.
On my first visit to Mekong in 2013, I ordered off of their lunch menu, which was mostly Thai food. My meal was good, but nothing to Unilocal/​write home about.
However, on subsequent visits, I’ve focused on exploring the Cambodian side of the menu, which has been fantastic. I have had the good fortunate to visit Cambodia, and I find the food here on par with what I had in the motherland. Even better, Mekong Bistro are champs about modifying dishes, so I’ve been able to try a greater variety of dishes here than in Cambodia.
You can’t go wrong with the Ah-​mok, any of the Cambodian soups or the nyum salad.

Aaaaahhwww my Cambodian restaurant. Home made goodness. A family owned restaurant that knows the meaning of good Cambodian food. Papaya Salad, spicy wings, Crepes, Cambodian phở, authentic home made sauce and of course their dranks.

Used to eat here frequently until there was a rock in my glass noodles. It was a small, sharp pebble that was scary to bite; especially after my jaw surgery a few months ago. I thought it would hurt my teeth worse — but it was thankfully surrounded by enough crunchy sand to soften the blow.
When I complained, they blamed it on poor Chinese quality control at the noodle factory & said it might be too much to expect them to remove *all* the stones from their noodles. Holy shit. They also mentioned it was an issue that has happened several times before.
I’d like to say «just avoid the glass noodles» — but this definitely makes me question their commitment to quality control in general.

This place is AUTHENTIC and OUTSTANDING! If you like «Pok Pok» you will LOVE this place!!! Customer service is superb as well

The Mekong Bistro is a sports bar! Comfortable, plenty of space. The night I was there they had a varied crowd in a great way! I got food to go, focusing on menu items identified as Cambodian. The rice noodle dish was deficient in the protein I ordered. The Cambodian sour soup was different and interesting in a good way. But I would have to say the to go food cannot match the expectations of the photos. So maybe eating in would be better. They still use foam clamshells to go, rather than paper-​based. Staff was friendly and quick. And it would be a good spot to get your sports on with a menu different from typical sports bar fare.

Go here! The food is amazing. The staff is incredibly knowledgeable and will walk you through all your questions on the menu. It has quickly become my favorite late night spot.
I love this place. It’s maybe not in an area with a great reputation, but don’t let that deter you. Everyone there is super friendly and well spoken. I can’t write enough praise for how well I have been treated. The decorum is well lit, clean and very inviting.
The food ah the food. An blend of mouth watering SE cuisine. A word of caution, the scale of heat here is kicked up a notch. This is not a complaint as it only accentuates the flavors. Get crazy wings with tofu!

Live near Mekong Bistro, so finally made my way in to check it out.
Nothing that really blew me away, but it was all good. Prices tended to be a little on the high side, but the menu is pretty large. A couple of our entrees kind of tasted the same, so I’ll make a point to mix it up a little better on my next visit.

Always worth the long drive from far southwest. Asked for the labb to be made with pork which they totally did for me! I asked for it spicy as well and thy delivered without taking it to the point of melting my face off. Companion got the steak with pra-​hok sauce (he’s boring) but he loved it.
Until next time, which I’m sure will be soon. =)

Came here on a friday night before the Disoriented show.
Let me get this out here first. The food is really good. I won’t lie. It is a mix of Viet/​Cambodian/​Thai and it’s all around excellent.
But the 1 star comes as basically a warning that while the food is good, expect to be served ridiculously slow. From start to finish when we ordered the food, it took about an hour to get our 2^nd dish, a whole 20 minutes after our first dish. We had them box our 3^rd dish because they brought it out while we were trying to pay and cancel it.
We weren’t the only table, as I saw this happening all over the restaurant. I hate to be picky but if you know you have this problem, don’t see so many people. I rather put my name down, come back in an hour and get fed, then sit at a table and wait for a hour or more for my food.
The worst is they didn’t even seem a bit pertrubed that we were waiting. Instead when we told them we should just cancel our order and leave, they seemed almost upset that we weren’t patiently. The last straw for me though was when we ordered Thai Ice Tea with our order. It didn’t come out until 30 minutes later.
I understand that maybe your chef may be sick, or something is wrong with your kitchen. But to not care, be upset when we wanted to just cancel our order, and not being able to serve drinks… not a great Friday place location…

Awesome happy hour deals! It’s kind of out of the way from where I live, but close to where I work. Somewhat of a happy medium. They have Ninkasi on tap, which will satisfy my other half. We’ve only had the happy hour menu. We usually get the mekong wings, crazy wings, fried rice, and I like the beef jerky. Eventually, I’ll try items on the regular menu, but for now, can’t beat the pricing of happy hour!

This is a review for a person that has only tried Cambodian food twice, but be aware for people that might be trying Cambodian food.
This is probably the worst meal I had in Portland, so much so I had to throw 80% of it away. Why 3 stars? The friendly service and the fact I am not accustomed to Cambodian flavors.
I came here on late after going to the sold out food at Jade District Night Market, looking for something to eat. Unilocal brought me here based on the reviews.
First off Unilocal should not categorize this as Cambodian, Thai, and Vietnamese, since most are Cambodian influenced flavors.
Crazy wings– when I asked the girl what was in the sauce, she promptly replied it was a secret. tasting the sauce I have had this flavor profile before in Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants that serve wings, so the sauce was not the problem. My problem was that it was over fried, overly crisp and burnt bones (i.e. black and burnt ends). It seems the restaurant also make cuts along the wings before they fry them– maybe it’s part of the cuisine, maybe it’s to cook them faster, all i know is that it made the wings greasy on the inside and exposed the bones to the hot oil, creating black, very charred parts of the chicken wing. For $ 8 for 8 pieces, TOTALLY not worth it.
My papaya salad ($ 8) was definitely not what I expected in flavor, the fermented crab (as I discovered in Don B,‘s review) in lieu of the dried shrimp gave it the most off putting flavor on my palate. I hate to say this, but for the first time as an Asian American, my palate might be too American for Cambodian food. Two bites I could not take it anymore – I had to throw it out. Don’t think Thai or Viet papaya salad, think Cambodian style.
As friendly as the service was, the girl tried to up sell me quite a bit. Nothing wrong with that, but the hustle did make my experience a little less inviting.

After seeing good reviews for this place, I went here with a co-​worker for lunch, and it was absolutely dead. We were the only customers there, and no one came in at all from 1:00 — 2:30pm. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed my meal at Mekong Bistro.
Mekong Bistro serves unique noodle soups which are Cambodian based, but then they also serve some Thai food dishes and phở as well. I also saw some hot pot options on their menu. This was my first experience at a Cambodian based restaurant, and it was totally new to me. There aren’t many other options to get what you can get here.
I went with the #34 which is a spicy Khao Soy noodle soup with ground pork. I’m used to spicy food and love it, and this soup got me going. I coughed and choked on the spices a few times. The broth was delicious and the ground pork was soft and chewy. Very excellent meat. I also really enjoyed the texture of the noodles which were slightly thick and flat as opposed to round. The broth of this dish reminded me of a Chinese style Ramen I’ve had in Japan called «Tantanmen.» What was great about this dish was that there was a ton of noodles. Whenever I go to a phở place, I usually leave still hungry or just almost satisfied. This bowl left me full, while I still had noodles left.
My co-​worker and I also split their «Crazy wings» which were flavored in a slightly spicy and sweet tang flavored glaze. Marinated in a sauce with green onions and peppers, these wings were pretty delicious. The only iffy thing about them was the waitress first told us they’re out, suggested the other wings we didn’t want, then told us later that she found them… they were «in a bag». I would still go try these out. A friendly price for six delicious and uniquely flavored wings with zest.