Filipinos make up the third-largest Asian American population in the United States, but in cities like Portland with a smaller number of Filipino Americans, the density of Pinoy restaurants is often dwarfed by other Southeast Asian cuisines. However, Portland’s Filipino offerings have grown exponentially in recent years. More pop-ups have emerged selling Pinoy classics and remixed dishes, like the chicken adobo pot pies at Allie G’s Pastries, pandesal breakfast sandwiches at Balong, and the tasting menu at Tikim. And thanks to the cross-cultural nature of Filipino cuisine, Hawaiian spots like Grind Wit Tryz often have favorites like sweet Filipino spaghetti on the menu. In true Portland style, Filipino chefs don’t shy from tweaking tradition, drenching fries in sisig or stuffing smoked brisket into golden-fried lumpia. For even more Filipino flavors, check out our ube map.
Read MoreWhere to Find Fantastic Filipino Food in Portland and Beyond
Classic chicken adobo, savory-sour sinigang, and beautiful Pinoy baked goods in Portland and the surrounding suburbs
Bobalicious Cafe
Despite the name, Bobalicious isn’t really about its boba; the Hillsboro restaurant is one of the very few combination plate-hawking Filipino deli in the area, where visitors build their own platters with a choice of various stews, braises, and soups at a hot bar. Options include classics like pork adobo, the rich pork stew dinuguan, and brothy chicken tinola, plus treats like lechon kawali on certain days. It’s best to call ahead for the current lineup, however, as it changes often.
Kubo
With walls clad in rough-hewn wood planks and bamboo, Kubo, in a Bethany shopping center, has a modern aesthetic while keeping the menu classic. Kubo sells staples like lumpiang sariwa and lechon kawali, as well as a number of sweets like buko salad, the Pinoy answer to ambrosia, and sapin-sapin in all of its colorful layered glory. Kubo is open for takeout, delivery, and has outdoor seating.
Magna Kubo
The Beaverton sibling restaurant to Southeast Clinton’s Magna Kusina, Magna Kubo specializes in Filipino meats — things like crispy pork rubbed with lemongrass and alliums, saucy ribs, or chicken marinated in calamansi juice and fish sauce. Start with an order of chicken wings, fried and coated in a combination of tamarind powder and annatto oil, and finish with Kubo’s next-level halo halo, loaded with house-made leche flan and ube ice cream.
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Hapa Barkada at Below by Botanist
Located within the kitchen of Lovejoy’s Below by Botanist, Hapa Barkada is a collaboration between chef Melvin Trinidad and Hapa Howie’s owner Kiaha Kurek, combining Filipino and Hawaiian dishes on a single plate. For instance, Trinidad’s twice-cooked pork belly adobo — adobo-braised pork belly that’s deep-fried and finished with togarashi — can arrive with garlic rice and Hawaiian mac salad. Trinidad’s take on bistek transforms the beef and soy sauce dish into a braised brisket sandwich on a pandesal bun — it’s a fun choice to pair with an order of pork lumpia.
St. Barbra Pinoy Bakery
While downtown’s St. Barbra Pinoy Bakery obviously turns out plenty of baked goods, the small shop also offers savory meals and snacks like empanadas, adobo, and silogs, Filipino breakfast dishes with garlic fried rice, meat of choice, and a fried egg. Drop in for takeout orders; on nice days, they’re best enjoyed in the nearby Duniway Park Lilac Garden.
Hunnybeez Portland
Originally opening as a Newberg food cart in 2019, Hunnybeez has slowly moved closer and closer to Portland, now tucked in a brick storefront downtown. The restaurant’s owners describe Hunnybeez as “backyard barbecue with a Filipino twist,” which translates to a menu incorporating tocino sandwiches, maximalist tortilla wraps stuffed with lumpia and mac salad, and traditional soups like pork lugaw and chicken sotanghon. Family meals come with choices of meats like pork adobo and lechon, as well as sides like pancit or mac and cheese.
Sun Rice
Hidden within the Moxy hotel in downtown Portland, Sun Rice sells garlicky rice silogs with a rotating cast of accompaniments, whether that’s lamb adobo, corned beef, or grilled fish. Almost always, chef TJ Cruz gives diners a choice of crispy pork belly, sinamak-marinated branzino, or chicken adobo as silog options, plus a vegetarian mushroom version made with maitakes. Keep an eye out for fun pop-ups and collaborations, like recent ones with cocktail bar Too Soon and Foster-Powell restaurant Street Disco.
Makulít
This Southeast Stark food cart, within the Lil’ America pod, self-identifies as Filipino American fast food, serving longganisa sausage burgers, adobo poutine, and chicken nuggets with vinegary sinamak. The nuggets are particularly nice, brined in mustard for 24 hours and coated in a blend of tapioca flour, corn starch, and rice flour; eat them alongside a carton of lumpia or the Big Bunso, a four-ounce longganisa patty with grilled onions, cheese, lettuce, tomato, atchara, and fry sauce.
Baon Kainan
This Northeast Portland food cart skyrocketed to legend status soon after its 2021 opening. Its menu is small but mighty; any visit should involve the cart’s chicken adobo, though the rotating specials — Filipino spaghetti, plump-shrimp-filled sinigang, Jollibee-style fried chicken — are often knockouts. Visiting during weekend brunch means indulging in a selection of silogs, including versions with pork belly and grilled eggplant.
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Magna Kusina
This groundbreaking Filipino restaurant in Southeast Portland switches up its menu throughout the day: lunches of Filipino rice porridge lugaw or beef pares mami, a star anise-braised brisket soup, transition into dinners starting with an assortment of tuhog, skewers with charcoal-grilled pork intestine, tiger prawns, or wagyu beef. Those ready for a celebratory dinner should opt for Lamagna’s inventive takes on Pinoy standards, like oxtail kare kare with pumpkin seed butter or ginataang alimasag, Dungeness crab and other shellfish in a fragrant coconut broth. The crab fat noodles, built on a foundation of squid ink noodles and Dungeness crab, are a must-order.
Shop Halo Halo, or Botanical Bakeshop
Geleen Abenoja opened Botanical Bakeshop, a combination plant shop and bakery, with florist Daphne Peters; to the left, Abenoja’s Shop Halo Halo serves ube crinkle cookies and the sticky-sweet rice dish biko, while Peters operates Daphne’s Botanicals to the right. Treats in the pastry case change with relative regularity, which means some visits may involve dramatic towers of sans rival, the Pinoy take on the dacquoise with Swiss meringue buttercream and salted roasted cashews, while others may involve luscious blueberry-calamansi cheesecake. Many of the bakery’s treats accommodate vegan or gluten-free diners.
Tambayan Restaurant
Along with Fork and Spoon House, Foster-Powell’s Tambayan is one of the few longstanding Filipino restaurants in Portland. The menu is also comprehensive, offering multiple versions of sinigang, the sour soup flavored with tamarind; a variety of pancit; and kare-kare with either traditional oxtails or beef. Tambayan is also one of the few spots in town that consistently offers dinuguan, the rich Pinoy pork blood stew.
Masarap
It’s all ube all the time at this standalone stall on Northeast Sandy, whether it’s silky ube cheesecake, ensaymadas filled with ube, or bright purple ube waffles topped with — you guessed it — ube butter. While Masarap does offer savory snacks like lumpia, dumplings, and sio pao (Filipino steamed buns), almost every savory dish comes with an ube counterpart; in other words, a visit could involve an amuse bouche of ube lumpia, followed by a steamed bun stuffed with purple yam filling. The shop also sells boba, coffee drinks, and ube lattes, naturally.
LGM Delicacies
This Eastport Food Carts spot has become a neighborhood go-to for Filipino spaghetti, loaded up with both ground beef and sliced hot dogs and finished with melted cheese. The menu also includes classics like beefy lumpia, chicken adobo, and pancit, though families love to stop by for cones of deep violet ube soft serve, also available in halo halo.
Fork And Spoon Food House
Parkrose Filipino restaurant Fork and Spoon House has a tight menu of favorites like pork adobo, afritada, and kare-kare, plus sisig fries, an invention using the chopped, grilled pork and onions as a topping. Dishes like longsilog, sweet pork with garlic fried rice and a fried egg; bangsilog with fried milk fish as opposed to pork; and spamsilog, which is exactly what it sounds like, are among the restaurant’s breakfast offerings. The restaurant also offers catering.