Libre, the new cocktail and dessert bar from Nan Chaison (Mestizo, Norah) and Gabrielle Martinez (@sweetcreaturepdx), offers many sweet and boozy pairings. Our favorites so far are two mole-based numbers: the Vale la Pena, a subtle mole-tinged crème brûlée with a crispy sugar top and a dollop of bone marrow caramel ice cream, and the Sangre de Dioses, a mezcal-based mole milk punch that brings out the mole’s spices and depth.

Magna Kubo has a lock on both smoked meats and good ice cream. Specifically, the halo halo from resident pastry chef Allie Guevara (of Allie G’s Pastries) is not to be missed. It’s a massive 20-ounce treat that combines housemade bright purple ube ice cream with sweet jellies, condensed and evaporated milk, crushed ice, rainbow cereal dust, and silky, pudding-like leche flan. They’re sized for sharing—but you certainly don’t have to.

One of Portland’s top bakeries is a well-kept secret: a Friday through Sunday pop-up within pizzeria No Saint. The pastrami and swiss croissant, best lightly reheated, is sure to impress, with a generous amount of salty meat and just a little gooey cheese for good measure. Your table will be covered in flaky pastry when you’re done—the true mark of a good croissant.

While Xiao Ye’s first-generation cuisine draws heavily from Taiwanese and Italian influences, one of its best dishes comes from neither. Tiny, lightly sweet madeleines are made from rice flour and masa—the latter of which gives them crunch and extra-toasty flavor. They sit on a bed of jalapeño butter; be sure to scoop it all up for an ideal start to your meal.

Could chilaquiles get any better? Leave it to chef Luna Contreras. She takes fresh masa, stuffs it with cheese, deep-fries it, and drowns the cheesy things in spicy red salsa and a showering of cotija cheese. True to Contreras’s eclectic, veggie-forward style, it’s well-garnished with chia seeds, sesame seeds, radishes, and little greens. This dish is a prime example of her pop-up Chelo, firing on all cylinders at Lil’ Dame.

Sichuan City is one of my favorite restaurants for a group, whether for birthdays or book clubs. Its bucket fish is a showstopper, a bubbling cauldron of fish filets, tofu skin, pickled cabbage, Sichuan peppercorn, and sliced green chile that requires at least six people to take it down.

Almost anything can be turned into silog (fried garlic rice and a sunny-side up egg): just add hot dogs or Spam or bacon or fried chicken or yes, corned beef. Preferably Sunrice’s housemade corned beef, made with lots of tender, sizable chunks of beef head, that on its own would win an award for some of Portland’s best corned beef. The garlic rice takes it to another level.