Green Papaya Bistro

So… I have tried this place about 6 times, as it is riiight next door to my office and so convenient enough to keep giving it chances. But Green Papaya has defied these chances and continually shown me that it almost sucks. Varied experiences include super-​rude takeout service, cold food, bad food, not-​what-​I-​ordered food, still-​not-​what-​I-​ordered food, doesn’t-this-dish-come-with-something-else food, and the new-​ish owner/​manager who is just so creepy it hurts. The whole place has an «I-don’t-give-a-damn» atmosphere. That being said, their happy hour is well priced and involves a pretty good selection. I had one decent hh experience, and one that was pretty sucky… involving my wontons being served with ketchup. The upshot? The bartenders are nice, and if you like surprises, this is your kind of place. You really never know what you’ll end up with.

I will have to agree with Dr. S, this has been by far the worst Vietnamese restaurant I’ve been to. I am also from the Bay Area where Vietnamese restaurants are plentiful, and have been spoiled with some of the best Vietnamese dishes. Although, I also live in the SE side of town where there are plenty of Vietnamese restaurants some as good as those in the Bay Area, if not better! I had the pork rolls here (nem noung) and it was HORRIBLE! The nuoc mum, or the fish sauce that comes with many Vietnamese dishes, was GROSS here! It tasted like it was all vinegar.

my bf and i were visiting portland and wanted some good thai food. we asked our concierge at the hotel, and she recommended the ‘green papaya’ around the corner from the hotel. so we went there, only to find out it was ‘vietnamese’, not ‘thai’. But we tried it anyway. To my major disappointment, this was the worst vietnamse food i’ve ever tasted. this restaurant is called a «vietnamese restaurant», but they serve japanese noodles, chinese won ton noodle soup, and other non-​vietnamese dishes. i don’t think they’ve figured out what exactly they want to be. I ordered a «garlic scallop» dish for $ 19.00. It was described as «garlic scallops with vegetables». i don’t know about you, but i would hardly consider green onions, red onions, white onions, and red bell peppers as vegetables. there were no other «vegetables» in the dish. very disappointing, to say the least. so i paid almost $ 20 for about 5 scallops and a plate FULL of onions. the dish had no taste at all, and it was served somewhat warm — not hot at all. since we were the only patrons in the restaurant, was it sitting in the kitchen for a long time before they brought it out? not good.

Erm. Yeah.
You know how sometimes leftovers are better the day after?
My lemongrass chicken was not.
(And while the food was fine, the flat soda, lack of real plates, and subpar service make me say… meh! I’ve had better!)

I’ve been here many times for happy hour in the bar — fantastic Asian fusion food, reasonably priced, smiley service, great drinks with a kick, chill atmosphere. For happy hour appetizers, I highly recommend the wontons, steak rolls, sesame balls (my fave dim sum item!), and salad rolls.
It was only recently, though, that I had the opportunity to try dinner here. I had the sate tofu entrée, my friend had the lemongrass tofu, and we shared the salad rolls for an appetizer. Everything was really tasty, but I must highlight the tofu… I can honestly say this was the best I’ve ever had. And I consider myself quite educated in judging flavorful tofu. Note: Dinner is more tastefully done in the main room, but we opted for a more casual dinner in the bar… especially because we could color with crayons on the tablecloth!
Note on the service: Although friendly and patient, the service is often slow here. I think they’re just low-​staffed because you can see the one or two servers are generally running around madly trying to serve too many people at once. The bartenders (I’ve had 1 regular female and 1 regular male, both incredible!) are usually in the same pickle. May I suggest hiring more people?
Wait, did I mention the great drinks? I’ve tasted the Absolut Thai Iced Tea (with Absolut vanilla!) and the lychee martini… both are delicious. This time, I strayed from my usual traditional mojito and had a strawberry one instead, per the server’s suggestion, and it was fantastic! I don’t usually like fruity or foofy drinks, but this was lip-​smack-​alicious. They have several fun flavors now, so you can go crazy on the mojitos here. I plan to do just that in the near future.

Now I wished I attended the elite event at Green Papaya so I won’t give out one star review, but after my horrible service experience on Sunday, I don’t have any other choice.
We came to Green Papaya just to get some drinks. My DL got two beers, I had a coke, and my two other friends had iced tea. We were going to had some martinis, but the weather was too hot and after the Obama rally we were too tired even to had some alcohol.
Anyway, our first waitress was nice and polite. For some reason, she disappeared and replaced by an evil and rude bartender. Who gave us our check even tho we weren’t ready. Then I told him to put 2 beers and my $ 3.00 coke on my Master Card. My friends gave him money for their drinks.
He came back few minutes later with my credit card slip to sign, but he didn’t bring my friends’ change with him. So they asked for their change and he brought back all the money that they gave him instead of the change and with the meanest tone he said «Here’s the whole money. I didn’t touch them yet. You guys figured it out.» Then walked away.
I saw him rolling his eyes when he got to the back of the bar. Then he never came back for the money. So we just left everything there. I couldn’t believe it cost me $ 3 for coke and I had the most horrible experience ever. Sorry yeeps, seems like I had a male bartender on PMS.

After much talk, I finally got to have Sex on My Face.* I did it with the smell of lemongrass chicken and the sounds of The Simpsons in the background. Yeeps watched. Pictures were snapped and posted on the Internet. A drill enthusiastically chimed in. What more could a girl ask for?
*Note: I didn’t eat anything. I was busy, OK?

Tasty food, quick and attentive service. Price is pretty affordable. We had chicken satay, crispy rolls, Lemon Grass Chix, Pad Thai. Delicious food, generous portions, affordable, and great service.

The server says the Seafood Soup is very popular.
A friend and I shared dinners which were about $ 9.50 each,
except an Entertainment Card Punch cut that by half.
A quiet weeknite made dinner in this lovely spot a genteel experience, on a day when even the rain was soft. Bridgeport IPA goes well with Viet Namese food. They were fresh out on Taps, but had it in bottles, which was fine, since it’s a very consistent bottled product, and LOCAL.
Fried, here, means breaded and deep-​fried.
Grilled also apparently means breaded and deep-​fried, however.
All the meat and fish appeared to have been fried, except there was NO oil after-​taste; and the crisp cabbage and tres-​fresh veggies do keep your palate feeling clean.
The crispy little Spring Rolls are also apparenently deep-​fried, and had visible oil on the skins. Despite their odd appearance and puny size, I wanted more, and bigger ones. Loved that dipping sauce — poured it all over my rice and noodles, since they were served (shh!) NAKED. The hot mustard & red dipping sauces for the Pork was exactly as Chinese cafes serve, so no thrill there.
The Jasmine Rice and Rice-​stick Pasta were generous and nice, but did I mention… totally naked… and dry, making me wish I’d brought my own Thai Sirichi sauce, or Teriaki, or Hula Hula Sauce or something, for more flavor.
We thought meals were ample in size, Just Right.

«HORRIBLE» is too nice of a word to describe this place. This use to the place for us girls to hang out for dinner and happy hour. We have been coming back the past couple of years. One of my girlfriend told me this restaurant change ownership about a month ago. We decided to come and celebrate my birthday. HUGE DIFFERENCE in the food. You are better off buying Thai food in a can or package then to spent your money here. Okay, here are the problems. (1) The waitress spilled sauce on my sister’s pants. (2) The dishes are way too small. The $ 11 Bistro Salad has 2 shrimps split in half served on tiny plate with salad. The $ 11.50 Cashew Shrimp has about 12 small shrimps which looks like an appertizer. $ 9.25 Pad Thai Chicken has just a few slices of chicken and very little noodle. $ 9.25 Tofu and beans was very small. $ 12 curry chicken served in very small pot. Food cost to the restaurant is less than $ 2 per dish since poor ingredients are being used. I grew up in a family restaurant business. (3) We ask our waiter to help us take one picture since we are there for a birthday gathering. That didn’t happen. He said he will come back to help us because he is busy taking care of other customers. The entire restaurant have like 5 tables. (4) My friend’s tea never got refilled. We were tired of waiting and decided to just leave after we paid. (5) Food TASTE HORRIBLE. The salad was tasteless. Pad thai cook with the sweet red chili sauce… huh? That’s not how you make pad thai. Curry chicken was tasteless with very dry chicken. Tofu dish is tasteless. The only dish that turn out okay was the Cashew Shrimp, but the dish was so small you need a magnifying glasses to see it. We still have a great laugh out of the entire night. The 5 of us couldn’t stop laughing about how horrible the food and service is. We definitely will not come back again. A word of advice to the owner is to ask the previous owner/​chief how to make the food or go take some cooking classes and buy some cook books. I cook better blindfold.

Ah! Their vegetarian phở is not very good. Even my meat eating friend didn’t like the beef phở. The noodle is right, but the broth is not hearty enough. Its a bit too expensive, $ 9 for phở! I remember phở is better in LA, SF, Vancouver or Toronto. I think if you want to get good phở go for a good drive to the SE 82^nd area. Its more worth it, and cheaper too. Also, Green papaya is kinda cheesy… their restaurant is setup up more like a cheap sport bar. But they have a DJ playing music after 10pm. WEIRD! Awkward! Oh yeah, after 9pm its happy hour. Phở gets cheaper and smaller. I guess it is more worth it then.

I gotta give it up for this place. The food here is surprisingly tasty. I say surprisingly because I tried this place the week it opened and was summarily unimpressed. I had not been back until recently for a high-​powered (and ethanol-​fueled) lunch meeting. I came to find that they are under new ownership, two of my good friends were working, and while the physical plant had not changed, the quality of the food had improved drastically.
The pork skewers were quite tasty, and the dipping sauce was fishy-​divine. The veggies were done well (just lightly and quickly wokked) and the pile of Jasmine rice was generous. I was unable to finish my plate, which is a rare thing. For the price, it was a good value.
Drinks? Stiff.
The only thing that’s off about this place is that it’s sort of in the midst of an identity crisis. Green Papaya, do you want to be a bar, a restaurant, or a club? There are scanners, lights, and a dance floor, but these things are semi-​disguised during the daytime meal hours. Not enough, however, to make you feel like you are just eating in a regular restaurant. Round the corner to the bar, and you’ll find video poker and kind of a dirty, carpeted space. And nothing says «classy downtown lunch» like the black board at the bar advertising a drink called «Sex in Your Face». (according to an employee, it’s a Sex on the Beach centered by a phallic clump of straws with a mushroom head of whipped cream on top.) This is something I would expect to see if I were eating lunch in the barmuda triangle, but not up on the MAX line in downtown. Oh well.
Even though it’s not between my work and my home, I think this place may end up on my regular Friday afternoon hit list.

Fast, delicious, and dare I say… romantic?
Despite the fact that there were no actual romantic feelings involved between myself and the kind fellow Unilocaler I shared lunch with, (except perhaps in the mutual love for how stiff our drinks were poured), GP Bistro had obviously not taken down their «oh so classy» Valentine’s decorations. Needless to say we enjoyed a lunch under the sea of paper lanterns and strobe lights. BAM.
Our food was delicious… I was so hungry that it was only half way through the meal that I realized that I was devouring my lemongrass chicken with a fork and knife rather than the provided chopsticks («whoops…my bad» she says in her best Cher-​from-​Clueless impression). Yet I think sticking with the simple classics seems to be the way to go here. Skip the filet minion, get the phở.
Umm, have I mentioned how stiff the drinks were? I only had one, which thanks to our impeccable timing of arriving for the last few hours of our waitresses’ last day, managed to not appear on the bill. But drivers everywhere are happy that I took the Max to lunch, cause DAMN. I would have had to leave my car and walk home!
I’ll definitely be back for the happy hour… especially since this place is within walking distance!

Good happy hour. I think someone on here said the nem noung needed a kick… nem noung isn’t suppose to have a kick. it’s suppose to taste pretty sweet, I don’t care if you’re from cali (big whoop), that’s what it’s suppose to taste like. The cured version simply called nem and isn’t nounged aka baked… is the one that has a kick. sour, spicy a tad pungent. I like the honey walnut shrimp, for the person that complained… the sauce is suppose to be white and maybe a little weird compared to conventional tastes. It is after all made with mayo and coconut milk, among other ingredients. Relaxing atmosphere, it is what it is. asian resturant trying to be fancy. Nice change from regular bar fare at other non ethnic places.

UPDATE 3÷22÷08
WTF happened?
Head to Green Papaya on a cold dreary day. The soft lighting and soothing décor will instantly transport you out of your daily grind to a much more relaxing state of mind. Everything i have tried on the menu has been decent, but I would stick with the phở (beef or chicken only) as the freshness and quality make it some of the best in town.

Fresh papaya for happy hour
If you’re looking for some adventurous and healthy Vietnamese food, try out Green Papaya.
You’ll fill like you’re visiting an island when you sit on their rattan chairs with comfy cushions. My friend, who’s a regular, urged me to try their Absolut Thai Tea, which she loves. I opted instead for their mojito, which was very tasty. We ordered the chicken wraps for a starter and the papaya salad for the main. The whole meal was great and we left feeling full, yet it was so light. That’s a hard combo to find when eating out.
Tip: Check out their happy hour with reduced nibbles and tasty cocktails.

Ate here with my husband on vacation for lunch. I liked it and would so go back! I had the lemongrass chicken and which was spicy and oh so good. Also the décor was nice, more modern then I was expecting. I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. I also liked the pretty plates and thought everything was served/​presented very well. The appetizers were tasty and fresh. The service was good, although not that fast, but the place was pretty packed. The rice was cooked to perfection. My husband had the grilled pork and ate all of it. A good place to grab a lunch downtown.

Update 7÷3÷08: came back a couple of week ago and it does indeed suck with the new ownership. I agree w/​Mochamocha L. If they got a new chef, bring the old one back. Gosh I looked at the main menu and saw the new prices. $ 13 for crab noodle soup is ridiculous. The happy hour food was half of what they used to be in term of taste. they couldn’t even make a decent mai tai. The manager is nice but one of his waitresses couldn’t even crack a smile.
Now my fav. happy hour place is gone! Damn it!
Ordered:
Satay Chicken-​ok, nothing exciting
Nem Nuong-​pretty good but flavor needs a kick
Spring Roll-​nothing exciting
Papaya salad-​ok
Fish beancurd wrap/​roll-​wow it was so good. I loved the beancurd wrap
Shao Mai-​fantastic, the 1^st time I like sui mai
Squid salad-​i loved the squid, it was already a salad on top a bed of veggies
Thai ice tea-​ok
Vietnamese style coffee-​came out already made instead of having the condense milk dropping into the cup. My friend didn’t like it.
All dishes were $ 2, squid salad was $ 4 & papaya salad was $ 3, drinks were $ 3. There were peanut sauce, mustard, sweet & spicy sauce, & soy sauce for the items. I heard the waitress saying that their license might come back on the 15^th. There were only 4 ppl there including us. $ 25 before tips.
Definitely coming back here during happy hour for a light meal. Might try dinner sometimes.
They offer validated parking for people who eat over $ 20 at lunch & $ 30 during dinner.
Update: just had dinner there tonight and it was disappointing. Ordered fried halibut, cubed filet mignon, & honey cashew shrimp. All of the dishes did not match its price. There was only ⁶⁄₇ shrimps for $ 11. The filet mignon was the most expensive ($ 18.5) & bland. It did not taste like what the dish would normally taste like .
The fried halibut was breaded and fried & came out covered in a tomato sauce. I expected to be fried as is and comes with a dipping sauce. The shrimp has a weird white sauce on it, unlike what I had at another restaurant.
These dishes could seriously clog your arteries. I don’t think I’m coming back here for dinner, just Happy Hour.

This WAS my new all-​time favorite happy hour spot, for about a month, until they (tragically) lost their liquor license. It’s not really clear at this point if they’re going to manage to survive until they can get a license again, but if they do, it’s well worth a visit.
The happy hour food is AWESOME. There’s about 10 – 12 $ 2 options (with $ 3 drink min.), including chicken, pork, and salmon satay, salad rolls, and a handful of other tasty nibbles as well. The salmon and pork satays are both particularly wonderful. For $ 3 you can get either green papaya, or mango salad, both of which are refreshing and a nice counter-​point to the meats.
The beverages are good as well. There’s 6 – 7 house specialty cocktails, including a wonderful Green Jade martini, made with fresh basil, and a lychee martini as well. They only have a couple beers on tap, but they’re great local options.
I’ve had a couple of the dinner options and they were solidly good. The phở is definitely worth it.
Finally they get points for the décor, which manages to be Asian-​themed, hip, modern, and yet not actually pretentious… which is a pretty delicate line to walk.
So the bottom line is, if they get the liquor license thing worked out, definitely GO. And if you don’t mind no alcohol, it’s still worth checking out. Hopefully they haven’t had to lay off all the kitchen staff in the meantime.