This cheerful counter-service taqueria in Vancouver grinds its own masa every day for its tortillas, which end up loaded with wild-tasting lamb barbacoa, juicy and flavorful suadero, and wicked-crispy logs of chorizo filled with gooey cheese. Any combination works well with the restaurant’s extensive mezcal collection.

Don’t let the haphazard sign and makeshift plywood shelter fool you: This food cart makes some of the best carnitas not only in St. Johns, but in Portland. Potato-chip-crispy at its edges and massively flavorful, a single carnitas taco doesn’t go for more than $2.50.

Everybody who knows anything knows that this tiny St. Johns tienda slings some of Portland’s best tacos. Standouts are the lengua, carnitas, and pastor tacos, given some extra oomph with the restaurant’s bangin’ avocado salsa.

Tucked in the back of the Killingsworth Station food cart pod, Tehuana serves Oaxacan-style dishes to enjoy at the pod’s many tables or during a game of pool. The chipotle pork tacos on handmade tortillas are pure heaven with a squirt of the cart’s house-made, broodingly dark morita salsa.

This food cart, parked in the lot next to Yonder, serves a stunning cochinita pibil taco on handmade tortillas, dotted with pickled onions and radishes. The lengua and buche are no slouches, either — super flavorful with balanced texture.

This wonderland of a supermarket has some serious guisados at its deli counter, from chicken mole negra to cochinita pibil. But the must-try is the birria, with that super-savory broth red with chiles and the depth of any good beef bourguignon. No need for salsa — it’s ideal on its own.

Chef-owner Nick Zukin delivers a well-researched take on guisado-style tacos at this colorful Old Town standby. The filling comes in the form of a stew, whether of pork, beef, chicken, lamb, fish, meatballs, eggs, or farmers market vegetables, dropped into freshly made tortillas. Taco Tuesday hunters will dig Mi Mero Mole’s, when the restaurant throws an all-you-can-eat for under $15.

With its no-joke cocktails and contemporary space, T9 has become an inner-Southeast favorite. These tacos are pricey ($4 to $5) for a good reason: Where else will you find carnitas made with wild boar? From carnitas with silken fat and crispy bits and dark and moody camarones a la diabla, every taco on the menu is worth trying, but it’s sacrilege to miss the cochinita pibil: achiote-seasoned pork roasted in banana leaves.

This Mill Park food cart quickly became a staple for its hardcore breakfast tacos: A fried egg cuddles a well-smoked slab of bacon among a mess of pickled onions and peppers, topped with fresh pico. The spicy habanero salsa, with a hearty slap of cumin, is an exceptional addition.

Por Qué No may be the most divisive taqueria in town. Both its colorful SE Hawthorne and N Mississippi locations always seem to have lines out the door — even when it rains — but cynics contend it's not worth the fuss. Still, PQN's tacos are tasty, particularly the braised-inside-banana-leaves barbacoa — a possible play on the traditional roast under agave leaves.

The great thing about Portland Mercado’s cluster of Latin American food carts is that diners can mix and match cuisines from all over Central and South America. But no visit is complete without Tierra del Sol’s tacos, all served on organic blue corn tortillas. Owner Amalia Sierra serves three of her deeply complex moles — a dark and robust coloradito, a vegetal verde, and a bright and lively amarillo — in tacos, an ideal solution for those wanting to try all three.