Oregon is home to a lot of restaurants, bars, wineries, and breweries, but there are tons of hidden gems that the majority of Portlanders aren't unearthing. To help guide us to these potential discoveries, we've enlisted some of our city's many food players to share their recommendations for a weekly feature dubbed Dining Confidential.
Photo of Thai Bloom courtesy Facebook
The owner of the recently opened Piattino, Kooroush Shearan, has always loved to cook. Even at the early age of 14 his father was already saying: "I know Kooroush will become a chef." And he did, as well as a restaurant owner. Shearan's first restaurant was in Dubai, and he has had 15 restaurants over his lifetime, including two in Great Britain, one on the Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, one in Gladstone, and Shiraz in Tigard. Recently, Shearan transformed his Shiraz location in the Pearl District into Piattino, featuring small-plate Italian cooking created by his 21-year-old chef Jacob Harth. When Shearan isn't dining at one of his restaurants, you'll find him on the search for good Thai places, and he believes the best is in Cedar Hills.
I love the freshness and taste of Thai food, and my favorite local Thai place, until they closed, used to be Typhoon! on NW 23rd Avenue. I was sad to see it go, but in my search for great Thai restaurants in Portland I found out about eight months ago that the chef, "Miss Noot" [Nunda "Noot" Sybim], had opened a place in Cedar Hills called Thai Bloom. My favorite combination to order is her Tom Yum Soup, fresh salad roll, and spicy chicken with basil and extra vegetable. I also love the Ladh Nah with no egg. We go there at least twice a month. It has very good customer service and, Sam, one of the owners and Noot's husband, seems to always remember all the regulars, their favorite dishes and they way they like to order it.
· Thai Bloom Restaurant [Official site]
· All Previous Dining Confidentials [Eater PDX]
