Wei Wei

By Matthew Korfhage

7835 SE 13th Ave., 946-1732. Lunch and dinner Tuesday-Sunday.

Housed in an inauspicious-looking strip mall next to a Sellwood convenience store, Wei Wei is a stylishly minimalist noodle house and bao shop within. There are low-hanging lamps, mismatched wood walls and a huge chalkboard-wall menu including lovely greens, nice $2.50-$3 bao and off-track items like a subtle whole mackerel dish and skewers of mackerel-like saury. But get the beef noodle soup ($13), which joins thick cuts of meat with hand-pulled in a deep-brown broth that is meatier, richer and more excessive than that in any pho or British meat pie. The soup is beef qua beef, beef sine qua non—an education in the language of beef. This, finally, is the promise of bone broth delivered: stock so dense the very marrow swirls within. It is a revelation—my soup of the year so far.

Willamette Week

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.