Mama Chow's Kitchen is a

Chinese restaurant A Chinese restaurant is a restaurant that serves Chinese cuisine. Most of them are in the Cantonese cuisine, Cantonese style, due to the history of the Overseas Chinese, Chinese diaspora, though other Chinese regional cuisine, regional cuisin ...

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, United States. Chef and owner Jeff Chow started the business in 2014, operating in

downtown Portland Downtown Portland is the central business district of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is on the west bank of the Willamette River in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and where most of the city's high-rise buildi ...

for nearly a decade before relocating to

southeast Portland Southeast Portland is one of the sextants of Portland, Oregon. Boundaries and features Southeast Portland stretches from the warehouses along the Willamette River through historic Ladd's Addition to the Hawthorne and Belmont districts out to ...

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a city in the United States * Richmond, London, a town in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town ...

neighborhood in 2023. Mama Chow's Kitchen has garnered a positive reception. It was named one of the city's best new foods carts by ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the West Coast of the United States, U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Tho ...

'', was selected for Oregon in ''

The Daily Meal The Daily Meal is a food and drinks website. Launched in October 2010, it was the first site launched by Spanfeller Media Group, founded by former Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller. In 2016, The Daily Meal, along with Spanfeller Media Group, was ac ...

'' 2021 list of the best Chinese restaurants in each U.S. state, and ranked sixth in

Yelp Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publishes crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in S ...

's list of the top 100 Chinese eateries in the nation in 2024.

Description

The

Mama Chow's Kitchen operates from a

food cart A food cart is a mobile kitchen set up on the street to prepare and sell street food to passers-by. Food carts are often found in cities worldwide selling food of every kind. Food carts come in two basic styles. One allows the vendor to sit ...

. The business originally operated in

, before relocating to the food cart pod called Farmhouse Carts on Division Street in

neighborhood. The menu includes

dumpling Dumplings are a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of cooked dough (made from a variety of starchy sources), often wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, wheat or other flours, or potatoes, and it may be filled wi ...

wonton A wonton ( zh, t=, s=馄饨, p=húntun, j=wan4 tan4, first=t) is a type of Chinese dumpling commonly found across regional styles of Chinese cuisine. It is also spelled wantan or wuntun, a transliteration from Cantonese zh, j=wan4 tan1, ...

noodle soup Noodle soup refers to a variety of soups with noodles and other ingredients served in a light broth. Noodle soup is a common dish across East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Himalayan states of South Asia. Various types of noodles are used, such as ...

, as well as lollipop chicken wings

marinated Marinating is the process of soaking foods in a seasoned, often acidic, liquid before cooking. This sauce, called the marinade, can be either acidic (made with ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice, or wine), or enzymatic (made with ingredien ...

in garlic, honey, soy, and vinegar, and served with

yakisoba (, , ) is a Japanese noodle Stir frying, stir-fried dish. Usually, soba noodles are made from buckwheat flour, but soba in are Chinese-style noodles () made from wheat flour, typically flavored with a condiment similar to Worcestershire sauce ...

noodles or rice. The restaurant also serves char siu and garlic noodles.

History

Jeff Chow is the chef and owner. He started the restaurant in 2014 and was inspired to name the business after his mother, who worked at a Chinese restaurant in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

. Chow announced plans to move the business from downtown Portland to the Richmond neighborhood in 2022. The move was completed in 2023. In 2024, the restaurant closed temporarily after Chow was injured while hiking at Wahclella Falls in the

Columbia River Gorge The Columbia River Gorge is a canyon of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Up to deep, the canyon stretches for over as the river winds westward through the Cascade Range, forming the boundary between the state ...

. Mama Chow's has participated in ''

'' annual Dumpling Week several times, including in 2019 and since 2022. In 2022, the restaurant served Mom's Pork & Shrimp Wonton Soup with cilantro, garlic chives, and scallions. It served sui gow-style dumplings with

bamboo shoot Bamboo shoots or bamboo sprouts are the edible shoots (new bamboo culms that come out of the ground) of many bamboo species including '' Bambusa vulgaris'' and '' Phyllostachys edulis''. They are used as vegetables in numerous Asian dishes a ...

s, carrots, mushrooms, pork, shrimp, and water chestnuts, served with a chili oil black vinegar dipping sauce in 2023, and Chicken Wonton Soup, which had chicken,

caramelized Caramelization (or caramelisation) is a process of browning of sugar used extensively in cooking for the resulting butter-like flavor and brown color. The brown colors are produced by three groups of polymers: (C24H36O18), (C36H50O25), and ...

shiitake The shiitake (; ''Chinese/black mushroom'' or ''Lentinula edodes'') is a macrofungus native to East Asia, which is cultivated and consumed around the globe. Taxonomy The fungus was first described scientifically as '' Agaricus edodes'' by ...

s, and yellow onion wontons served with

bok choy Bok choy (American English, Canadian English, and Australian English), pak choi (British English, South African English, and Caribbean English) or pok choi is a type of Chinese cabbage ('' Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''chinensis'') cultivated as a le ...

and garlic chive in a bonito brown butter bone broth, in 2024. Mama Chow's is slated to begin operating as one of five food carts in the pod on Hawthorne Boulevard in

's Sunnyside neighborhood in February 2025. The site is part of the

Steeplejack Brewing Company Steeplejack Brewing Company is a brewery with multiple locations in the U.S. state of Oregon. The business operates in Portland and Hillsboro, and has announced plans to expand to Manzanita. Description and history Business partners Brody Day ...

outpost, which operates in a former bank building and also houses a coffee shop by Harder Day.

Reception

Mama Chow's was named one of Portland's best new food carts by ''The Oregonian'' in 2014. The newspaper's Michael Russell also included the business in a 2016 overview of the city's best fried chicken wings. In a positive 2014 review of the restaurant, Andrea Damewood of the ''

Portland Mercury ''Portland Mercury'' is an alternative bi-weekly newspaper and media company founded in 2000 in Portland, Oregon. It has a sibling publication in Seattle, Washington, called '' The Stranger''. History A prior version of ''The Mercury'' was ...

'' wrote, "Mama Chow's is one of those gems that you can tell is going to make it, good press or not." In 2024, she wrote, "Back then, people complained about a lack of good Chinese food in Portland. That wasn't true then and it’s especially not true now, thanks to places like Mama Chow's." In 2021, ''

'' selected Mama Chow's for Oregon in a list of the best Chinese restaurants in each U.S. state.

Brooke Jackson-Glidden Brooke Jackson-Glidden is a food writer and the editor of '' Eater Portland''. In 2023, she received the Jonathan Gold Local Voice Award from the James Beard Foundation in part for her essay about Either/Or. Jackson-Glidden has been the editor o ...

and Krista Garcia included Mama Chow's in ''Eater Portland'' overview of the

metropolitan area A metropolitan area or metro is a region consisting of a densely populated urban area, urban agglomeration and its surrounding territories which share Industry (economics), industries, commercial areas, Transport infrastructure, transport network ...

's best chicken wings. Mama Chow's ranked number six in

's list of the top 100 Chinese restaurants in the United States in 2024. Covering the list, ''

Food & Wine ''Food & Wine'' is an American monthly magazine published by Dotdash Meredith. It was founded in 1978 by Ariane and Michael Batterberry. It features recipes, cooking tips, travel information, restaurant reviews, chefs, wine pairings and sea ...

'' said, "The secret to Mama Chow's success is, in some ways, its simplicity; dishes with only a few ingredients are elevated by an attention to detail rather than an excess of culinary flourishes." ''

Parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually some variety ...

'' said, "This food truck uses a lot of garlic and love to make their food, and it shows. Yelpers say the 'Food is unbelievably good. Love the garlic noodles with the dumplings.' Unfortunately, you can't go here for Christmas because the truck is shut down until January, but when it reopens, it's a must-stop!" Mama Chow's ranked number 72 in Yelp's 2025 list of the 100 best food trucks in the U.S, based on reviews.

References

External links

* {{Coord missing, Oregon 2014 establishments in Oregon Chinese restaurants in Portland, Oregon Food carts in Portland, Oregon Restaurants established in 2014 Restaurants in Richmond, Portland, Oregon Restaurants in Southwest Portland, Oregon Restaurants in Sunnyside, Portland, Oregon

Description

History

Reception

See also

References

External links