What might look like a typical Hillsboro Mexican bakery from the outside is the one of the only specifically Guatemalan restaurants in the region. The name — Guatemalans call themselves “chapines”— is the tip-off. This is the place for hard-to-find meaty stews like the weekend-only beef soup sopa de res, the tomato-y shredded beef dish hilachas, and jocon, a green tomatillo-based stew that’s available with beef or chicken. For dessert, head straight for the rellenitos, little fried plantains stuffed with sweet bean and chocolate.

The Pacific Northwest isn’t exactly overflowing with Caribbean restaurants, but for Puerto Rican food like crispy alcapurrias (plantains with seasoned ground beef) and bacalaitos fritos (salt cod fritters), head to Beaverton’s Boriken. One of the restaurant’s most popular dishes is its mofongo, a tasty mound of fried plantains mashed with chicharrones; the restaurant’s mofongos come with a choice of protein, ranging from skirt steak to slow-roasted pernil. No dish is complete without the shop’s garlicky mojo.

Costa Rica attracts American eco-tourists seeking pura vida, but the Central American country’s cuisine isn’t represented as predominantly in the U.S. restaurant market. One of the Portland area’s only Costa Rican restaurants, however, serves Tico (Costa Rican) faves like gallo pinto, fried white rice and beans, and chifrijo, a.k.a. fried pork, pico de gallo, rice, and beans, served with tortilla chips for scooping. Casa del Pollo is also known for its roast chicken; any of the Costa Rican specialties work as a natural pairing for the restaurant’s birds.

Downtown’s Caiman Cafe is a daytime spot serving both Cuban and Mexican food, which means breakfast burritos, sure, but also fritas a.k.a. Cuban hamburgers; lechón azado, marinated and roasted pork; and sides like boiled yuca with garlic mojo. It’s also a perfect pit stop for grabbing a Cuban cortadito and pastelito filled with guava and cream cheese.

Family-owned Casa Zoraya brings artful plating and an Andina pedigree to North Portland. The restaurant looks casual on the surface, with its narrow row of tables, rustic mixed wood accents, and pops of azure paint, but the food is meticulously constructed. Dishes showcase multi-hued potatoes and piquant peppers, and lomo saltado — a Chinese Peruvian dish of stir-fried beef, tomatoes, and french fries — gets an upgrade with sirloin and potato wedges adjacent to a neat mound of rice.

Pambiche, the colorful Cuban restaurant on the lower level of a Victorian building, has persisted just off the now-trendy 28th Avenue corridor since the dawn of the millennium. It’s also one of the few places in town people can find bacanes, a tamale-esque filled cassava-plantain cake steamed in banana leaves; they arrive filled with things like stewed okra and black-eyed peas or braised Creole chicken. Larger plates include classics like ropa vieja; most of them come with moros y cristianos, the colloquial name for black beans and white rice.

Beyond rodizios like Brazil Grill and national chain Fogo de Chão, Brazilian food isn’t easy to come by in Portland. Belmont food cart Brazilian House fills the gap by offering comforting classics like feijoada, the hearty black bean stew filled with sausage and smoked meat, and moqueca, a coconut milk-based seafood stew flavored with palm oil. The cart shares a pod with local legends like Viking Soul Food, with shared seating.

Latin America’s approaches to hot dogs vary greatly: Colombia has perros calientes — often topped with things like crushed potato chips, mayo, pineapple — and Chile has the completo, garnished with guacamole and sauerkraut. At PK’s food truck in the Barley Pod, visitors can try both, as well empanadas served with pebre, a mild Chilean hot sauce, and the mazorcada, a wild dish that combines corn kernels with slew of chopped meats, garlic sauce, cheese, and shoestring fries for crunch. Grab a beer from the taproom as a pairing.

Alecocina at the Portland Mercado is one of two local Argentine food carts (Abuela Chona in Beaverton’s BG Food Cartel is the other). There’s no better representation of the Italian influence on Argentina’s cuisine than the milenesa, steak (or chicken) pounded thin, breaded and fried, and served simply with fries or Napolitana-style, slathered with tomato sauce and topped with melted cheese and herbs. For something more portable, try a classic choripan, chorizo and chimichurri stuffed into a French roll or a dulce de leche-filled alfajor.

Que Bacano is one of the most popular carts at Portland Mercado, likely because Colombian food is scarce in the city. It serves the holy trinity of arepas, empanadas, and patacones, as well as bigger entrees like arroz con pollo and the bandeja paisa, a traditional hefty platter of rice, soupy pork-filled beans, plantains, sausage, chicharrones, fried egg, avocado, plus an arepa.

Merendero Estela, a Honduran food cart just a few blocks north of Cartlandia, specializes

in pollo con tajadas, a.k.a. “chicken with very green bananas,” an underwhelming name for a princely basket of fried chicken and sliced tostones, nestled next to a bed of shredded cabbage and pink pickled onions. For something simpler, the cart’s baleadas — soft, handmade flour tortillas folded over refried beans, cotija, and crema — are hard to beat.