Donavon S.
Yelp
I cannot begin to explain the splendor that is Kung POW! My family and I have been coming to this restaurant for over 4 years now and I can honestly claim without any doubt, that this is truly the best Chinese food in all of Portland; but the more we search, the more we come to realize this may be the best Chinese food we've ever had period! The quality, consistency, and experience is always above and beyond any expectations I've had for any restaurant.
THE FOOD:
First off, the food is what brings you in, but the family who owns this restaurant (along with the food, obviously) is what keeps us coming back. Getting to the food, not 1 single item on this menu is bad. We are honestly some of the pickiest eaters; my family and I. Any dish, it's gotta have the right texture, the right level of salty, sweet, acidity, spice, tenderness, heat etc all play a major level of what we deem to deserve such a raving review. Every bite of every of any single 1 of these dishes will have the perfect harmony of umami. This is genuinely the only place where we know if we want to be adventurous and try something new; we know this will not be at the expense of accidentally getting something we don't like. Some of our favorite dishes which are staples for us here are:
-salt and pepper prawns
These are seriously incredible. The prawns are huge and they are perfectly breaded, but they are deep fried in a manner that has the exterior golden, crisp, but never dry. And the prawns are cooked perfectly. In all our years of ordering this dish, I have never, I repeat, NEVER received a dry shrimp. And the pepper and salt ratio is perfect for this dish with its jalapeños, green onions, white onions and various seasonings to create such an amazing dish.
Singapore noodles-
These are spectacular. They have a variety of veggies and your choice of meet. But there are seasoned perfectly, and they are such a good dish either alone or as an addition to give your other entrees some breathing room. The way they c oil these noodles in this specific oil blend is honestly just magic. We've tried this with each meat option, for us we are in love with the shrimp option, but honestly you can't go wrong with any of the meat options. Everything here is so consistently put together. You can't go wrong honestly.
Honey dried fried beef-
This amazing establishment has created this in a variety of meat options; chicken, pork, beef. Again all of them are spectacular but we honestly go with the beef. The way this is fried, it's hard to explain. The meet is still very tender, but at the same time it's like these are double fried and smothered I. The most delicious savory sweet sauce. And when you combine that sauce with the perfect crunch, it's fireworks in a bite. It goes soooo good one some white rice too.
Potstickers-
We've saved the best item on the menu for last, which is ironic because it's a mandatory staple for starting your meal with these. The pork potstickers on this menu are honestly apart of my last meal fantasy meal. These potstickers cannot be defined by any human language. Nothing on this world could come close to explaining how perfect these gems are. The way these are made, they just be fried somehow as the top as a nice texture like a potsticker would. That slight doughy pasta like texture, but the BOTTOM these are golden and crunchy which contrasts sooooo nicely with the soft top of the potsticker. The meat is a beautiful mixture of aromatics inside. What puts these angels on their private stairway to heaven is the sauce which is hand mixed each serving. The sauce is the perfect amount of acidity with these. And if you cut the potsticker in half, put a little spoonful in the half potsticker, this is what we would call the "perfect bite." This perfect bite haunts my dreams until my next visit to Kung POW.
If by the time you finish this review and still wonder if you should come to this true joy, do yourself a favor and make the leap; you won't regret it. This is a place that has you come for the incredible food, but it will have you come back and stay for the truest of memories created at this place. My family have done Christmas dinner here a variety of times and this place will become a memory cornerstone for you too. Just give this amazing place a chance-rather than this place being lucky you gave it a chance, you will come to realize you are the lucky one to have been able to have been served by such a genuine restaurant.