Show HN: I'm eating at all the phở restaurants in Portland, at least twice • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I'm eating at all the phở restaurants in Portland, at least twice

#11

Post by sebg » Fri, Jan 23, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

oregoncurtis wrote: post #9

sebg wrote: post #7

Have you done a Phở-off? I've done a similar thing with Pizza places around me and discovered that my tastes were different when I ordered the same type of pizza pie and had them all at the same time, compared to what I preferred in the restaurant. Might be worth a try

That's pretty hard/impossible to do with Phở as the noodles will degrade pretty quickly. I'm hoping that go 3 times to a place spread over time will help average out the swings in my tastes.

Ah okay! Makes sense. I’ve never ordered them as I wasn’t sure how a soup gets delivered so it makes sense.

Maybe one day you can write a book like Ivan Orkin did with Ramen :)

Re: Show HN: I'm eating at all the phở restaurants in Portland, at least twice

#12

Post by diceduckmonk » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 9:14 AM UTC

Funny enough, I’m a Vietnamese person from Portland and was doing this exact same analysis in Paris (highest density of overseas Vietnamese population) visiting a dozen places last month.

People visiting for a few days go with a “10 restaurants you have to try in Portland” which are just mediocre chic restaurants you can find in every other city. They don’t realized how underrated Asian food in Portland is. One, Google Maps and Yelp reviews are negative signals of for Asian food. Restaurants that highly rated above 4.5 are so for the “ambience” rather than the food. Two, the restaurants are dispersed rather than being concentrated around a Chinatown or Little Saigon.

Re: Show HN: I'm eating at all the phở restaurants in Portland, at least twice

#13

Post by diceduckmonk » Sat, Jan 24, 2026, 9:20 AM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #3

While I am quite envious, not to mention suddenly hungry for pho, I don't think restaurant reviews qualify for a Show HN. There are guidelines for Show HN submissions at https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

I think it’s intellectually stimulating that people are taking a systemic and scientific approach for a niche kind of restaurant