Chinatown for history, Forktown for food – Portland, Oregon is full of surprises
Don’t expect to fill up on great Asian food on a tour of Portland’s Chinatown; feast on reminders of its past instead, and make the most of the other cuisines offered by the west coast city’s eclectic dining scene
Being Chinese American, I am a bit of a fanatic when it comes to Chinatowns, which in the United States are usually synonymous with fresh produce, seafood, bakeries, dim sum and kitschy gifts. Growing up in New York, my parents and I would drive down to Chinatown every week to enjoy wonton soup and, when possible, the latest Bruce Lee film. I once drove to Toronto to check out the Canadian city’s numerous Chinatowns. Now I live near San Francisco, which boasts some excellent and affordable dim sum.
Thirsting for a new adventure, I decided to visit Chinatown in Portland, Oregon. The city, known for its beer and restaurants and whose nicknames include Forktown, is one of the fastest growing in the US; almost 7 per cent of its roughly 650,000 people are Asian. It would have a robust Chinatown, I told myself.
Portland has roughly 24 restaurants per 10,000 people, right behind San Francisco and Seattle. It boasts 69 microbreweries, with Oregonians alone consuming 650,500 barrels of local beer in 2015. The west coast city also has the most coffee shops in the US, with 2,572 in the city proper.
Surely Portland’s Chinatown should have some of the best Asian restaurants? I sharpened my chopsticks and headed off.
I signed up with Portland Walking Tours and let tour guide John Russell know that I was interested in Chinatown and its food. Russell went ominously quiet. “Well yes, there is Chinatown, but it’s not really Chinatown,” he said.
