Steam Rice Roll King 一哥肠粉王 — Restaurant in Portland

Yikes. I knew coming in that there was going to be a bit of a wait because it's the weekend, but man, I wasn't ready for THAT kind of wait. I think the big takeaway here is that the wait isn't necessarily because the crowd is big; the wait is there because kitchen moves SO SLOWLY that it makes you wonder what's going on back there. Also, I have a feeling that takeout orders are prioritized ahead of dine-in patrons.

I got there around 12PM, didn't get seated until 1:30PM. Given that it's Sunday lunch hour, I thought "Oh okay, it's Sunday lunch, that's fine". However, two things I noticed that did end up to be concerning. One, there were groups that were seated ahead of me that were there for at least 30-40 minutes without receiving any food (and this is 30-40 minutes from when I started to take notice). People were sitting there looking bored and/or impatient. Two, the list doesn't seem to matter. I was there at least 20 minutes ahead of a couple, but the waitress at one point stopped reading off the list and started just pointing at random groups and bringing them in. I particularly felt more ignored because I was a solo diner.

Upon being seated, the waitress came over with the drink menu...and that was it--no food menu and it took probably another 15 minutes before I got someone's attention to try to order. Mind you, I was literally sitting in the very middle of the restaurant, so I was hard to miss. I had to make intense eye contact with another waitress before one came over to take my order, which was a little difficult since the waitress didn't speak much English. This normally wouldn't have been an issue but it was a little more difficult since I did not have the food menu to point at. She ended up getting me one so I could point at the items to order. The biggest disappointment here was I tried to order the rice noodle roll, but the waitress discouraged me from doing so, telling me that it would take at least 40 minutes before it would come out. Friends, I say this in the kindest way possible--this restaurant is supposed to specialize in rice noodle rolls, so you'd think they'd be able to have that down. Rice noodle rolls in of itself are not difficult to make--you make the batter, you steam the batter, you add the toppings, then you serve. If you have things prepped, you should be able to whip things out pretty fast. Even if you were to mix the batter individually per order and steam them, it would not take 40 minutes. I ended up ordering some rice noodles instead and congee because I was just hungry at that point. I ordered around 1:30PM, got my first dish at 2PM--the noodles. I wasn't thrilled about that wait and regretted not ordering the rice noodle roll (since it was made to seem that getting the noodles would've been way faster) but eh okay, at least there'll be the congee. At 2:30PM, I was over it because I hadn't gotten the congee yet. I asked for a to-go box and packed my half eaten noodles and was waiting to pay when the congee FINALLY came out. It took another 10 minutes to pack that and finish paying before I was able to leave around 2:40PM.

That was probably the single most frustrating dining experience I've had during my six years here in Portland. I did eat the congee when I got home--flavor was great, and the toppings were generous, so the food here IS good. The problem seems to be the lack of organization of the kitchen. There seems to be a bunch of cooks running around back there, but I guess no one knows what they're doing because a restaurant this small really shouldn't have trouble keeping up with the orders.

Does this place have potential to be good? Yes. The food is tasty, so that's the not the problem. The problem is the lack of organization and inability to churn out food in a timely manner. I'd only recommend going at this point if have absolutely no plans after your meal. Or get takeout, since it seems like those folks got their meals in a more...

I was super excited to try this place as my fiancee and I are big foodies and the one of the things we venture out for is rice noodles, especially the style that is sold here. We are from out of state and this place was pretty high on our list. But sad to have had such a poor experience, and it's not because of the food.

Now my star rating is solely based on the service alone as our patience was truly tested. First of all, if they aren't hiring anyone, they really need to hire someone for the front, at least on busy weekends. The lady in front pretty much was the cashier, waitress, busser, and take-out person. I tried so hard to be patient and empathize but I couldn't when she took orders for 2 tables who sat down AFTER us, served 2 other tables, and then finally took our order only because I made eye-contact with her to let her know we have been waiting. After taking our order, the 2 tables mentioned previously were served their food and finished. Okay, so here we are, still being patient. She seats 3 other tables, takes their orders, and next thing we know, they already start getting their food while we still have nothing on our table. We have been there since 7:15pm, sat at maybe 8:15-ish (2 other parties pretty much left because of wait) and it was currently 8:30pm with an empty table. Turns out she gave our food to the table next to us. She tells them that they won't charge them for the food they didn't order and she only gives us an apology. No discount (which, fine, thats okay), but at least a complimentary (small) dessert. Something to show how sorry she is for making us wait. But nothing. We didn't get our first dish until 8:45pm. She didn't bother to tell the kitchen to prioritize our order over the (now) 6 other tables who ordered/arrived after us and are being served. We didn't get our last dish until 9:30pm which at this point we wanted to cancel, but she wouldn't really let us because it's "almost done." Okay whatever at this point. We paid it but felt like she didn't really go for that customer service point. I recommend rectifying that and hiring an extra staff.

However, food wise, it was good! Would give it a 4 star on food alone. I would recommend the rice noodles. I really liked the Chinese sausage one, BBQ is okay, and I liked how plump the shrimp was but it was really salty. Loved the noodle texture. Also, the flavor of the Sichuan egg noodles was delicious. Pricing and portion sizes of dishes are good aWould come back again maybe during a slow hour of the day IF I ever come visit Portland again to try a few other things that were sold out (especially the soy milk). But if the wait is constantly an issue, I wouldn't. Wish I could have had a better experience but glad they...

We came here yesterday morning as a family of five for dine-in. The place was clean and bright, but overall, the food was pretty underwhelming.

We ordered a mix of dishes — steamed rice rolls with egg, beef, shrimp, and ground pork(my family ate this one), plus the beef brisket noodles, fried mushrooms, salad, congee, and warm soy milk. The texture of the steamed rice rolls was really good — soft and fresh — but most of the dishes had barely any flavor. The sauces were super light, and there wasn’t any soy sauce at the table to help. The beef brisket was tender, but the noodles had no flavor at all even though they sauced the noodles, it was very watery tasting.

The shrimp rice roll wasn’t balanced — just pieces of steamed shrimp instead of being spread out, so you ate shrimp for one bite while the rest is all bland noodles. The chili oil didn’t have much flavor either. Honestly, the best thing we had was the warm soy milk — that was really good.

Service was okay but slow. It took over 10 minutes before anyone came to take our order, even though we were only the second table there.

The photos on the menu were also pretty misleading. The fried mushrooms in the picture looked like trumpet mushrooms, but what we got were just fried quartered white button mushrooms. The salad looked like an Asian-style vegetable salad in the photo, but it came out as iceberg lettuce with croutons, cheese, a few shrimp, and ranch — very disappointing. Like what!?

Overall, everything looked fresh but just didn’t taste like much. If I came back, it would only be for...