Phuket Cafe

1818 NW 23rd Pl, Portland - 97210
35 reviews
Asian Thai
(503) 781-2997

Whether you’re dining inside or outside they host you in a very aesthetically pleasing atmosphere. On this visit,I got to experience the brunch menu. I ordered the Khao mok gai and the Gang plaa. Both dishes were high quality. Shout out to Luke for being awesome.

Showed up around 6pm on a Tuesday, had to wait about 1 hour. The food was flavorful, highly recommend the mezcal drink, paella with shrimp, prawn curry, the potato, and curry puff. The crêpe cake was surprisingly my favorite dessert I’ve had in a while!

Came here for brunch with a group of friends and was blown away by how good the food was. Both my husband and I weren’t overly excited about the menu selection so expectations were low. We ordered the pork belly and flank steak and split both. Portions were perfect for me but slightly on the smaller side for my husband. Presentation, technique and flavor was impressive. We then had the Thai tea shaved ice. Best shaved ice I’ve ever had! Very airy and not dense like what every other place serves. I’m not usually impressed by many places but this will definitely be a place we bring visitors to.

There was a 30mins wait when we arrived at 6.Had yummy cocktails - I got the mezcal!Loved the roti w salmon roe.Great outdoor set up w a larger table for maybe a group of 6. Lots of 2 tops & space for smaller groups inside.

Holy moly what an experience! The food was the most flavorful meal I've had in years. The cocktails were unique and very well-crafted. The atmosphere was relaxed and fun. Everyone working there was extremely professional and fluid with their work.We had the paella with mussels (flavor explosion), the pork belly, the pompano skewers, and the smoked trout soup (one of the best soups I've ever had in my life). For dessert we had the thai iced tea shaved ice that was definitely the most unique and one of the most flavorful desserts I've ever had.I wish I could give more than 5 stars. This was a truly fantastic experience and we will be back!

I don’t get it.The wait is always crazy so we thought we’d try brunch. TL;DR: it was suuuuuper greasy.We had the veg curry, French toast and potatoes.The French toast and potatoes were both really good ideas with poor execution. The French toast had these delicious blobs of squash purée with, I want to say vanilla mixed in, and fried shallots. Both of those elements were good and interesting, but the toast part itself was way over-fried, to the point where chewing it released a gush of oil. And a neutral oil at that, so not even kind of greasy but good in the way that too much butter, or even coconut oil could be.Potatoes similarly had basically 50% of their mass as dark deep fried crunch, which is a shame because the sauce and (again deep fried) basil were nice.The curry itself was good, flavors similar to khao soi, but with a lot of fried shallots, and blistered cherry tomatoes, which were very good. The roti was a little dense and the fried egg was literally a deep fried egg - which sounds like it might be interesting, but egg white fried to a dark brown crust is texturally unpleasant.The side salad that came with the curry was actually my favorite thing. It had a really interesting and almost-actually-spicy bright acidic dressing with basil. I could eat a bowl of this the size of my head and be super happy.Maybe this is one of those places where you really just have to order something with meat for it to be good…but even if that’s the case, I’m never sure why those places bother with anything vegetarian in that case.On that note, I’m not sure, but everything we had gave me the impression it had fish sauce in it. It doesn’t bother me, but vegetarians may want to double check.Cute space, friendly staff, but 4 hours later I do still feel like I drank a cup of old fryer oil.

So happy this restaurant is here in my hood. Yummy Thai food many vegan choices, great tasting cocktails, and yummy deserts. I can walk there every day. You just get there early to beat the crowd.

I’ve got to say that there was so much hype surrounding this place. I was really looking forward to taking some friends there. The atmosphere is wonderful, service was good enough, drinks are great, however the food was overall disappointing. The best thing we tried was the pork belly. It was borderline too crispy but very good flavor. The fish salad was terribly over fried that we couldn’t even eat it because the pieces wouldn’t even break off in our mouths. One of my friends nearly chocked on a piece. Everything is too heavily doused in fish sauce and the Thai paella was so salty we all only took one bite. There rib-eye is grossly overpriced for the taste and quality. I cook close my eyes and imagine it being from my own backyard bbq. I can’t believe we paid as much as we did. It did not meet the hype.

Great vibe with delicious flavors. Dishes are small and shareable. It seems like they are still experimenting with the menu a little but everything is fun and has great flavor.

Ridiculously excellent. If there were 6 stars this place would deserve it. Party atmosphere, diligent service and stratospheric food.