Pacific Northwestern Dumpling Chain Dough Zone Opens Its Happy Valley Outpost

Dough Zone, the Washington-born restaurant group known for its dumplings and bao, has opened its third Oregon location. The Happy Valley restaurant began service on April 1, serving a variety of xiao long bao, noodle dishes, and its popular “Q-Bao,” similar to the seared-and-steamed soup dumplings known as sheng jian bao.

In 2014, Jason and Nancy Zhai opened the first Dough Zone location in Bellevue, Washington; the restaurant rapidly won over the Seattle area, attracting lines and positive reviews within its first few months open. Over the next 15 years, Dough Zone opened around 20 locations across Washington, Oregon, California, and Texas, including a sprawling space near South Waterfront Park in Portland. In 2023, the company announced that it would open two more Oregon locations, in both Cedar Hills Crossing and Happy Valley. The Beaverton location opened in 2023, followed by the Happy Valley location earlier this week.

The Happy Valley Dough Zone offers all the hits from the other locations, particularly dumplings: The restaurant serves steamed, fried, boiled, and soup-filled dumplings, filled with things like crab or Berkshire-Duroc pork. Dough Zone’s team steams and pan-fries the restaurant’s pork-filled Q-Bao, giving them a balance of soft, almost fluffy texture balanced with a crisp base. But the restaurant isn’t called Dumpling Zone — many of the menu’s 50-plus items include noodle dishes, gua bao-style “sandwiches” filled with beef, and scallion pancake wraps.

Dough Zone is now open at 11840 SE 82nd Ave Suite 3060 in Happy Valley.