Located right between Forest Grove and Cornelius, Los Pinchis serves a variety of different Sonoran specialties (think: Sonora-style hot dogs, percheron burritos, and caramelo quesadillas). For those who might be unacquainted with Sonoran hot dogs, they come with juicy bacon-wrapped frankfurters and loads of toppings like mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, french fries, and even other meats. Meals should finish with house-made flan or one of the made-from-scratch agua frescas.

A Hillsboro staple, La Mixteca Oaxaca has two locations in town that are less than a mile from each other. The menu boasts a substantial number of traditional Oaxacan dishes, including mole Oaxaqueño, tlayudas, cecina, estofado, and even chilate de pollo. Two particular standouts include the tender braised goat birria and crispy grasshoppers.

After years as a food truck, La Poblanita has transitioned into its brick-and-mortar home right off TV Highway. La Poblanita is one of the only places in the metro area that specializes in cemitas, a style of Pubelan torta on a specific sesame-seed bun. Poblanita’s tortas come in varieties like milanesa, cueritos, or the queso de puerco. Diners not interested in cemitas can still enjoy some other hard-to-find specials, like Poblanita’s tacos arabes or mole poblano.

Hidden behind a St. Johns mercado and panaderia, this no-frills taqueria is known for its lime-laden avocado salsa, so beloved that the owners have set limits on how much one diner can take. The salsas are particularly nice on the shop’s gargantuan burritos, straining to contain mounds of cabeza or carnitas. However, a bowl of the restaurant’s deeply rich and broody menudo is hard to beat, avocado salsa or not.

Crispy tortilla tubes stuffed with potatoes are the name of the game at this Bridlemile food cart, arriving smothered in creamy avocado salsa and a choice of protein — it’s best to opt for the saucy braised beef or citrusy pork. Order the taquitos “with everything,” which includes a pile of shredded cabbage, pickled onions, radish, cilantro, and a hearty handful of queso fresco. If the cart has some of its saturated tres leches cake, topped with fresh berries, it’d be sacrilege to go without.

At this intimate, window-lined, South Waterfront restaurant, chef Juan Gomez uses Pacific Northwestern ingredients to develop an inventive tasting menu using Mexican dishes as jumping off points. Menus change often, but on any given visit, a meal may involve Columbia River sturgeon tucked into an enchilada Suiza with wild onion salsa verde, or tamales made with house-nixtamalized masa and spring pea salsa. If possible, nab a seat at the chef’s counter, where Gomez happily offers context as he cooks.

Despite Division’s constant turnover, Nuestra Cocina has held its spot on the edge of Ladd’s Addition for more than 15 years, attracting crowds for sopes, chiles rellenos, and piles of tortillas made with the family heirloom tortilla press. The menu does change fairly often, swapping in seasonal dishes like sweet summer corn elotes. Mosaic-tiled tabletops and warm wood give off a homey vibe, fitting for a restaurant that’s named “Our Kitchen.”

It is unclear how, exactly, the team at Mole Mole is able to make as many dishes as it does in such a small space, but this Alberta Street cart successfully smothers enchiladas and burritos in various shades of mole, serves brick-hued pozole in colorful ceramic bowls, and gussies up plates of cochinita pibil with pickled onions and radishes. It’s hard to go wrong here, but considering the name, it’s best to start with anything featuring the cart’s moles.

For years, this stylish Northeast 28th Mexican restaurant has been known for its tortas, buns stacked with everything from Carlton Farms pork carnitas to Painted Hills braised beef. However, the non-sandwich options on the menu are also worth a perusal, including seasonal specials like pozole or desserts like hibiscus tarts. Dine in to pair your meal with one of the bar’s stellar cocktails.

Mondays through Wednesdays, the Lil’ Dame space on Northeast 30th becomes a palace of pineapple-coconut crudos, quesadillas stuffed with aged carnitas, and whole fried fish served with an array of salsas and tortillas. Dishes change frequently, though they often include a number of noteworthy raw dishes and fun large-format mains, served alongside wines from Dame’s stacked cellar. Chef Lauro Romero recently announced that longtime collaborator Alfonso Torres will take over operations at Clandestino; Torres, who turned heads at Taqueria Los Ponchos, has been working alongside Romero at Clandestino for months.

Mondays through Wednesdays, chef Luna Contreras steps into the kitchen at the romantic and cerulean-toned Dame to transform seasonal produce, locally foraged mushrooms, confit duck legs, and whole seafood into intricate dishes incorporating house moles, salsas, and hot sauces. Any dish involving heirloom corn masa — enchiladas, gorditas, tamalitos — is a safe bet, often arriving topped with a colorful slaw and rainbow of sauces. For dessert, Sweet Creature’s Gabriella Martinez tops spiced chocolate cake with dulce de leche and drizzles chamoy over rhubarb lemonade paletas.

While all of the carts in the Portland Mercado are worth sampling, Tierra Del Sol is a Mexican standout for its substantial tlayuda, a thin grilled corn tortilla that’s big as a plate and plenty for two, served open-faced and topped with chicharron, black beans, Oaxacan cheese, cabbage, tomatoes, avocado, and more. It might seem easy to skip the tetelas stuffed with creamy beans and rich Oaxacan moles, though it’s not recommended.

Located just minutes from the Clackamas Town Center, El Zalsoso fills handmade tortillas with carnitas, loads fries with asada, and stuffs footlong burritos with whole chiles rellenos. The corn-made section of the menu features noteworthy specialty dishes like machetes, mulitas, and huaraches, showing off the flavor of the masa.

There are a handful of Mexican seafood restaurants in Portland: Cully’s Mariscos El Malecon might be more central, but it’s worth crossing 205 and heading to Don Kamaron, a modern space with moody black walls and bar seating, for cocteles, shrimp empanadas, and molcajetes brimming with shrimp, octopus, and oysters. Still, the zarandeados, spicy, grilled head-on shrimp, is a house favorite.

This under-the-radar Yucatecan cart within Gresham Food Carts serves regional favorites like poc chuc, panuchos, and salbutes, as well as whole grilled fish, enmoladas, and quesabirria. Start with an order of polcanes, masa dumplings filled with beans; the shop’s shrimp ceviche is also stellar, citrusy and abundant with diced cucumber.