Originally a pop-up and farmers’ market stand, Burmese restaurant Rangoon Bistro now has two locations, both on the east side of the city. Why we love it: The range of flavors and textures at Rangoon is unmatched. We especially love their tea leaf salad, which utilizes Minto Island green tea leaves and shredded cabbage for its base; tomato, garlic oil and fish sauce for flavor; and peanuts, fried fava beans and chana dal for extra texture and complexity.

Another year, another intriguing new Portland restaurant exploring the cuisine of Myanmar. After long lamenting the lack of a robust Burmese restaurant scene along the lines of San Francisco’s, Portland now has several carts, a growing chain in Top Burmese (one of Portland’s best new restaurants of 2021) and now Rangoon Bistro, a more homestyle restaurant with tea leaf salads, slippery pork shank noodles and chicken simmered in a curry or deep fried with chile and lemongrass in a style halfway between southern Thailand and southern United States. Found at the Breathe Building, a health and movement center best known for its yoga classes, Rangoon Bistro current menu is perfect for cold evenings, while the return of hot summer nights next year will mean easy-drinking tamarind Pegu Clubs served on the rocks to a sprawling front patio.

One of the things we love about Portland’s gluten free scene is the diversity of foods you can find. You’ve got some of the more common cuisines represented in other city’s gluten free scenes – foods from Mexico, Thailand, even El Salvador – but you also have influences from more uncommon places, like Haiti and Burma. Rangoon Bistro is perhaps our favorite restaurant for a gluten free date night at the time of writing this guide.

The menu at Burmese farmers market stall turned full on restaurant duo Rangoon Bistro is affordable across the board, but this pork and cabbage loaded rice noodle dumpling provides the most bang for your buck. The KPS is listed as a side, but trust us when we say it’s enough for a full meal. It approximates the size of a large burrito.

Rangoon Bistro co-owners David Sai and Alex Saw met while working at an upscale Italian restaurant in Malaysia. What does that mean for you?. Well, if you happen to order noodles, Saw might finish them in a saute pan with their own starchy water, a technique more common to Southern Italy than Southeast Asia.