Wei Wei - A Taste Of Taiwan — Restaurant in Portland

I've eaten at a plethora of Chinese food restaurants, but this is the one authentic Taiwanese food restaurant in the area. This has all the classic Taiwanese culinary tastes from your grandmother's kitchen. I love the savory scallion "pancakes" because it has the hard crunchy outer edges, but the soft chewy insides with doughy textures. The best part is you can smell the appetizer being made before the wait staff bring it out to your table. The Chicken Rice plate is the best entree with battered and seasoned chicken thighs, lightly fried, and chopped into slices brought to your table. The Chicken Rice plate comes with an upside down bowl quantity of white rice smothered in pork belly sauce garnished with sliced green onion. My favorite noodle dish is the Beef Noodle Soup because the beef broth is authentic taste, and made with the correct spices such as Anis, fermented Bean curd, and soy bean extracts. The beef chunks are slow cooked to perfection where they are not tough, it doesn't get stuck and wedged in your teeth because the beef is extremely tender, like fall off the bone tender, and the pickled musterd greens are genuinely prepared in traditional and old school receipes. Their mackeral is sauteed to perfection with most bones removed, the herbs massaged on the filet, salted and sauteed to a gradient from light tan to golden brown along the bilateral symmetry of the fish. Everything in their dishes is handmade, prepared in traditional methods, and without any shortcuts. Their entrees don't have anything that comes out of a can, nothing is microwaved, nothing is cooked beforehand, nothing is kept warm under a heat lamp, and freshness is their top priority. An excellent indicator of my satisfaction is my frequency of patronage. As I was winding down my first meal at the restaurant, I was already planning the day and date of my next return visit. Their menu of traditional loose leaf teas varies from white tea leaves, oolong tea leaves, chyrsanthamum tea leaves, and gunpowder tea leaves. You order your favorite teas before your meal, and continue to drink as an astringent to cut through the oils in your foods. This serves as a palate cleanser between dishes allowing you to enjoy the full aromatic and textural tastes of each upcoming dish. Afterwards, you enjoy refills of your tea pot throughout your meal in order to continue your conversations and socializations with family and friends, therefore this restaurant is conducive to family reunions, group events, and celebratory dinners for a variety of occasions. Their operating hours are Tuesday - Saturday from 11 AM to 10 PM, Sunday from 11 AM to 9 PM, and closed all...

I've been to several of the popping up Taiwan places around town. I love them all for their own strengths. I'm all for more Taiwan places to eat.

Wei Wei's food is fantastic. The beef noodle soup is to die for, the bao is great (pork is my favorite), the soy braised eggs are great even though there is no black tea in them like a traditional tea egg, and the cucumber salad and steamed broccoli were delicious.

Restaurant is very clean and new, although a bit small inside. The owner lady was very sweet and accommodating despite our group of 4 plus a 1 yr old and an infant and stroller. The waiter who was obviously a Portland native wasn't so friendly and made it clear to us a couple times by his facial expression/body language that we were a bit of a nuisance with our stroller and disrupted "his" perfect little trendy establishment. However, the owner lady was extremely kind and even moved a table for us. Plus 1 point for Tawianese culture, minus one for hipster Portlander attitude.

Any person who hasn't spent some time in Taiwan and eats here will think the food is amazing. Everything I had on the menu is fantastic. If you want a rich, complex tasting beef noodle soup that is jaw-droppingly delicious with melt in your mouth beef and a clean and new ambiance this place can't be beat. However if you are looking for a 100% Taiwan experience, from the food to the atmosphere, go to Oolong Yuan across town on the westside.... you will know what mean if you go there. Oolongs flavors are a little closer to what I remember actually getting in Taiwan and are also...

Beef noodle soup is such a big deal in Taiwan that its capital city, Taipei, hosts an annual festival devoted to the slurp-happy goodness.

Awards are given for the best spicy version and the best clear soup.

The beef noodle soup served at Wei Wei -- pronounced Way Way -- isn't that spicy version; still, they pack a lot of flavor into the stainless steel bowls of soup served at this small Sellwood eatery.

The soup created by owner Judy Wang will never win the flaming hot award, but, thankfully, there's a condiment table with hot pepper flakes steeped in oil. And with bottles of sriracha lined up on the same table, you can make yours as hot as you like.

I've eaten a lot of Asian soups, from the medicinal Cantonese chicken soup made from a black-skinned chicken to Thai tom yum goong to Vietnamese pho, bun bo Hue and mi quang. Taiwanese beef noodle soup is so unlike all of them but excellent in its own right.

The soup has big chunks of braised beef, significantly larger than the chunks you'd find in stew. Thick wheat noodles -- made in-house -- mingle with pickled mustard greens and a seasonal vegetable, spinach was being used the day I visited, in the flavorful broth.

The restaurant is located in a strip mall, wedged between a nail salon and a convenience store. If you have to wait for a seat, get your nails done and then come back when it clears out a little.

The recipes are based on home cooking and street food found when Wang's family lived in Taiwan in the 1970s and '80s. Her parents help out in the kitchen, ensuring the recipes maintain their...