Some of Portland’s best Mexican food can be found in a cart tucked to the side of a gas station convenience store along Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. At Tito’s, taquitos are stuffed with fluffy potato and topped with aguacate, cotija, and microgreens — they can be ordered as-is or with the addition of proteins like garlic shrimp, braised beef, or garbanzo bean al pastor. Although the taquitos have top billing here, the tacos, boasting handmade nixtamalized tortillas, are worth ordering as well. Although the cart only has about 12 seats, it does a brisk business, typically selling out prior to closing time. To dodge lengthy wait times, diners in-the-know call their orders in or order online.

Bamboo sushi veteran Yoshi Ikeda opened this sushi cart in the Multnomah Village French Quarter pod in 2019 and has been serving high-caliber fish ever since. Fun, innovative rolls like the lime green roll with sesame-crusted spinach, cucumber, roasted pepper, avocado, and microgreens are only improved with the cart’s ginger miso. Rotating nigiri and occasional hand rolls showcase the super fresh seafood Ikeda sources. The cart is open for phone orders, and doesn’t accept walk-up orders; the pod offers seating indoors and out.

Bing Mi in Slabtown specializes in Northern Chinese-style savory crepes called jianbing. Fermented black bean paste and spicy chili sauce come slathered on an eggy crepe filled with green onions, cilantro, pickled vegetables, and a fried wonton cracker, combining bright, umami-rich flavor with both chew and crunch. Options include loading up the jianbing with bacon, spam, or even roast duck. The cart is open for walk-up orders with limited outdoor seating at the pod.

Prost Marketplace, home to some of the city’s finest food carts, welcomed Matt’s BBQ after it was booted from its original location. With locations in Portland and Beaverton — not to mention a taco-themed spinoff —  Matt’s BBQ has become a local legend. Customers order a la carte meats and sides online, as well as sandwiches piled with chopped brisket or North Carolina-style pulled pork, before picking up platters of meat at the cart. Matt’s is known for its tender brisket, peppery spare ribs, and house-made jalapeno-cheddar sausage, but the under-the-radar hit on the menu is its butter-dipped smoked turkey. One thing’s for certain: It’s sacrilege to miss a side of the queso mac and cheese. The cart is open for online orders for takeout and pod-side dining, as well as delivery.

Senegalese and Gambian cart Kabba’s Kitchen sits in a nondescript lot just a few blocks from the flashier Prost Marketplace pod, but its lively-and-bright chicken yassa, crispy fataya (think of them as Senegalese fried empanadas) filled with intricately spiced beef, and creamy mafe yapp with hunks of carrots and potatoes blanketed in orange-hued peanut sauce may draw its neighbor’s customers down Albina. The shop’s bissap, cold and burgundy with hibiscus, is a worthy pairing for any dish on the menu. Kabba’s offers limited outdoor seating, but this is more of a to-go deal.

Internet sensation Kiauna Nelson built her food cart dreams through self-taught culinary training and a business degree. Now, she serves massive piles of chicken and mac and cheese half the week at her MLK food cart. Kiauna’s (or Kee’s) specials can be found through her social media posts, but any day customers can walk up for sweet-salty fried chicken, crackling catfish, and saucy mac and cheese. Go early to line up; the food sells out sooner than posted hours may suggest.

This Vietnamese-American spot serves comforting classics like thit kho, braised pork belly and soft boiled egg in a broth-y blend caramel, coconut, and chilis, and da lat, fried chicken marinated in nuoc cham. That menu is balanced with Việt Kiều dishes straight from owner Richard Le’s brain, including breakfast sandwiches on pandan rolls and iconic fast food dishes made with Vietnamese sauces and ingredients. Le regularly switches things up, but if the green pandan doughnut is on the menu, order it. Matta is open for walk-up orders, parked outside Concourse Coffee; the move is to stop by for brunch on the weekends, sitting at the picnic tables outside both businesses.

This Couch Street Filipino cart has rapidly grown a fierce following, with dishes like jackfruit-and-mushroom sisig, Filipino spaghetti drenched in a banana ketchup tomato sauce, and fries smothered in beef-based kare kare. However, it’s hard to leave the cart without an order of Baon Kainan’s exceptional chicken adobo, juicy legs tinted with a smoked tamari-vinegar sauce. Baon Kainan shares a pod with Matta, with limited onsite seating.

You’ll never know what you’ll get at Ruthie’s on any given visit — some days, an order might involve thick slices of coppa in a tangy apple yogurt, or a corn salad topped with popcorn-like puffed sorghum, or pile of creamy, comforting funeral potatoes. The spontaneity keeps things interesting, and the main security blanket stays on the menu at all times: Sweet, house-made rolls with Ayers Creek jam, glistening and hazelnut brown on top. Ruthie’s is located behind Someday on Division.

The main draw of this Cully cart is its cinque e cinque, or “5 & 5”: a layer of torta di ceci, an Italian chickpea flatbread, is paired with jammy eggplant on house-baked bread (those who eat dairy should add burrata). But the full menu is stacked year-round, changing dishes as produce from Portland farms begin to ripen. The Revel Meat Co. porchetta, which gets a slather of both salsa verde and anchovy mayo, is another star, often on the menu; it’s best to round things out with a seasonal salad and one of the cart’s stellar desserts.

For more than 10 years, Megan Walhood and Jeremy Daniels have been churning out Norwegian lefse, potato flatbread, out of their adorable Airstream trailer on SE Belmont. The lefse are reliable comfort food for Portlanders, filled with combinations like meatballs with gravy or smoked salmon, dill, greens, and creme fraiche; any lefse pairs well with seafood chowder and lingonberry iced tea. Customers can order for pick-up or delivery online.

One of the standouts of the Hinterland food cart pod, Poppyseed is another one of those Portland carts making fun, off-the-cuff food that’s hard to classify. Visitors may end up eating luscious stewed beans brightened with a mustard green salad, or house-made nettle pasta in a creamy chicken-mushroom sauce, or a gorgeous meyer lemon pudding cake topped with a dollop of chantilly. Any of the above are well-complemented by the cocktails coming out of Hinterland’s bar. The pod offers indoor and outdoor seating.

At the Carts on Foster pod, dance music pumps out of the Italian street food cart Bari, matching the vivacious energy of owner Walter Ferrante. The cart specializes in fried-to-order panzerotti, a deep fried turnover akin to a calzone that hails from Apulian cuisine. Bari’s panzerotti has wonderfully crisp dough with a slight chew, and is available with a variety of fillings, both sweet and savory. Don’t skip the homemade cannoli, freshly filled with a citrus-tinged ricotta studded with chocolate chips. The pod has outdoor and covered seating.

Somali restaurants are not abundant in Portland, and Samira Mohamed knows that — it’s part of what inspired her to open her own cart, which is churning out deftly spiced Somali stews and sauces. Here, flaky sabaayad serves as a shovel for bariis maraq or saucy suqaar, paired well with crunchy sambusas. The hulking mandi lamb, served on a bed of golden rice, is a well-seasoned dream for meat lovers. Mira’s is located within the Yard at Montavilla, which offers seating.

The greater Portland area has a number of exceptional birria carts, but Birrieria La Plaza reigns supreme: Here, customers dunk cheesy tacos into consome swirling with the heat of toasted spices and charred peppers, glistening with a slick of chile oil. Owner Oracio Hernandez’s mother is the mastermind behind the recipe, which she keeps under lock and key; mystery or not, the shop’s quesabirria, mulitas, and vampiros are some of the city’s finest. Birrieria La Plaza is open for walk-up orders.