To enjoy cao lầu, diners usually must travel to Hôi An, where traditionally the thick, chewy tapioca noodles were made with ash from local trees and water from a specific well. Signs advertising the dish line the streets of the Vietnamese city, where tourists slurp it while waiting for Hôi An’s other specialty, hand-tailored clothes. Stateside, you’ll find cao lầu in few, if any, restaurants other than Rose VL, the younger sister of critically acclaimed soup shop Hà VL. Cao lầu appears in the rotation every Saturday, with prep starting at 4:30 a.m. Some customers come for it every week.

The noodles hold a rainbow of toppings: chicken, roast pork, peanuts, crispy shallots, mint, lettuce, crackly tapioca chips. Clear yet robust pork broth sits on the side. If it’s your first time, try the noodles without the broth to experience their texture with the dark, sweet-salty sauce hidden below.

6424 SE Powell Blvd, 503-206-4344

Most sushi comes in round rolls—but not battera. The rectangular sushi is a signature at this Sellwood newcomer, with pickled mackerel and a thin layer of kombu pressed onto sushi rice. Kaede’s owners, couple Shinji and Izumi Uehara, know battera as a dish often eaten on shinkansen trains in Japan, since the pickled fish travels well. Kaede tucks yuzu and ginger between the fish and rice, and upgrades this commuter food by torching the roll to activate the mackerel’s fatty oils. Their reason for serving it is simple: few places in Portland make it, and the Ueharas say they want to serve dishes you won’t find everywhere else.

8268 SE 13th Ave

En Vida’s pan-Latin menu reads like chef Mauricio Prado’s biography, including tastes of Colombia, where he was born, and Brazil, where he grew up. One dish is particularly hard to come by in Portland, but ubiquitous in Colombia: the bandeja paisa. Its components vary from place to place; Prado combines white rice, saucy red beans, avocado, fried egg, fried pork belly, medium-rare steak (as many Americans prefer it), and a white corn arepa made his grandma’s way. But he adds his own twist with Brazilian-style greens. He laughs: “A lot of Colombians, when they see it, they go, ‘What are these?!’”

1303 NE Fremont St

“Canned huitlacoche is garbage!” declares Roberto Hernandez Guerrero, the co-owner of Reeva, a cart whose influences include Mexican, Peruvian, Honduran, and Italian cuisines. Locally grown versions of the black, mushroom-like corn fungus are more like what he grew up eating in Mexico: nutty, truffle-like, and super-savory. He gets it dried or fresh (from Irie Farm or Cascade Organic) and puts it on wood-fired pizza, along with accompaniments like corn cream and charred shishitos. While huitlacoche isn’t a common pizza topping (though it does pop up in a few pizzerias in both Mexico and the US), the idea of combining it with dough and cheese isn’t far-fetched—you might find huitlacoche stuffed inside corn quesadillas around town.

7727 NE Sandy Blvd