Thang Long Cuisine opened in the former Thai Fresh location at 8409 SE Division Street in late April, replacing HÂP Fresh, which briefly occupied the space. The new restaurant will host a grand opening celebration on the weekend of May 11th and 12th. Co-owners Minh Pham and Thuy Nguyen took over the shop from the previous business to start their first Portland restaurant. This new dining location will inherit some of the more popular dishes from the last tenants while eventually incorporating traditional northern Vietnamese dishes of the new owner’s creation.
Thang Long Cuisine is the product of a mother-and-son team looking to blend flavors of their past with the culinary landscape in the Jade District. This shop is the first restaurant for Minh Pham, who currently works for a knife manufacturer. Consequently, they will rely on his mother’s culinary skills honed in Vietnam. Nguyen ran a restaurant for almost six years before moving to the United States and has a deep passion for feeding a community.
The new owners purchased the restaurant equipment and took over its lease from the previous operator with plans to pick up where it left off and then slowly convert it to their vision. “We will take over everything, including the menu. So we’re going to still focus on dumplings, and in the future, we’ll turn to our own recipes,” said Pham. Inspiration for the new dishes will come from their native home, Hanoi, and focus on the classic dishes that the modern inhabitants of that region still enjoy. The family history in that city extends beyond the future menu to influence the business’ name.
Thang Long is the historic name for Hanoi, Vietnam. It translates to ‘Ascending Dragon,’ and the owners felt it was a perfect fit for a restaurant opening this year. 2024 is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, providing a fortuitous double meaning. Designers incorporated a dragon into the Thang Long Cuisine logo, and Minh Pham created a long-bodied dragon along the dining room wall, with steamer baskets providing a scale-like texture to the design.
They offer table service seven days a week for lunch and dinner. The owners will finalize the schedule as they gauge community demand and work out staffing needs. People can dine in or grab takeout, with some delivery service through Grubhub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats. They plan to expand to offer delivery service through an employee to keep pricing reasonable. Pham explained that they will rely on customer feedback for many decisions, including menu changes. Part of the sale contract includes guidance and training from the previous restaurant owners, allowing the kitchen to prepare many requested items from past iterations while working on introducing new menu items. They also intend to bring back catering and event hosting services that were appreciated functions Thai Fresh offered the community.
Minh Pham and Thuy Nguyen invite the community to visit the restaurant next weekend, May 11th and 12th, for special discounts. Guests visiting those two days will receive buy-one-get-one-free pricing on all appetizer menu items. However, they are open now if people want to stop in or order delivery. Pham hopes people will share feedback about what they like and want to see from his shop. They recognize that this area has diverse tastes and hope they can find a niche in the community by offering quality Asian cuisine with a focus on dishes from northern Vietnam.
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