The Maple at Meat Cheese Bread, $7.50

This breakfast item boggles the mind. Two half-inch slices of maple bread pudding are slapped on the griddle and then served sandwiching a hand-formed pork sausage patty, melted chipotle Cheddar and a heap of fresh fennel. I’m ruined for life, at least until this place opens a branch in New York. Within two blocks of my apartment. How about it, guys? I’ll guarantee you a regular client base. Then again, the price would probably double.

The Chatfield at Pine State Biscuits, $7

The other breakfast sandwich among my picks, the Chatfield is a just-baked buttermilk biscuit (barely) sandwiching a crisp, seasoned and juicy hunk of fried chicken, along with thick-cut bacon, melted Cheddar cheese and a smothering of apple butter. That’s just automatically delicious, if more a full brunch than something a sane person would eat every day. Most Portlanders who urged me to go to Pine State (and several did) prefer the Reggie, which substitutes their popular house gravies for apple butter. But as long as you’re going for buttery-juicy-salty-meaty-cheesy you might as well go for broke by adding sweet.

Tacos de canasta at Uno Más, four for $6

There are plenty of good Mexican places in Portland, although for some reason most are judged by the quality of their burritos. (You crazy West Coasters.) At Uno Más, tacos rule, and a lunch-only special of tacos de canasta (“basket tacos”) are not necessarily better than their excellent traditional tacos but are certainly more interesting. To make a taco de canasta, the tortilla is briefly fried on a griddle with guajillo peppers, giving it a red tinge, then filled and folded and put in the steamer. The result is a texture that is soggy, but not unpleasantly so — and explains why the dish is also called “tacos sudados,” or sweaty tacos. There are four choices — I suggest doubling up on the chicken mole and the requesón and red chile. The tacos are tiny, so after eating four you may need “uno más,” and luckily, with $2 to spare you can have a popular taco al pastor, with well-spiced pork and bits of pineapple.

Meatballs and polenta at 24th and Meatballs, $8

At this mini-restaurant whose seating area looks like a porch tacked onto the side of Uno Más, meatballs and polenta was the only dish I tried, but it was the right call. You chose among several kinds of meatballs (traditional, pork, veggie, specials) and select a sauce (I went with tomato basil, which worked perfectly). The portion was easily hefty enough for a meal — the accompanying polenta is as creamy as advertised and fills you up fast. If you aren’t sticking to an $8 budget, go next door to the Pie Spot for the ridiculously awesome s’more “pie hole,” $3.75.

Choose your own and pay by weight at the Roman Russian Market

Categorize this deal, at a market with a separate seating area, under “volume and variety.” A friend joined me for this (and a few other) visits; we ordered a beef-filled samsa pastry (huge); a half-pound of herring salad, or shuba; sweet farmers’ cheese pancakes called syrniki, served hot under cool sour cream; a couple of little oreshki, walnut shaped butter cookies filled with caramel. We even splurged on two disgustingly sweet Russian sodas (I had the neon-red barberry flavor, whatever that is) and still spent only $15.50 total.