PDX Sliders
At PDX Sliders you can choose from local beef, pork, or veggie sliders made on a delicious brioche bun. The best beef slider is the Fremont: beef, bacon, American cheese, roasted jalapeño and aioli on a brioche bun for $4. This is probably the most flavorful, moist burger in Portland. Along with their regular specialties, they also offer a wide variety of weekly specials. PDX Slider's Judge’s Award is well-deserved!

Potato Champion
Open until 3 a.m. six days a week, The Potato Champion has served Portland’s late-night crowd since 2008. It offers fries and sauce and soda and not much more. Their fries, however, come topped with your choice of more than 14 sauces. If you’re looking for something more substantial, try the chili cheese fries, poutine or pulled pork. They also offer fries covered in palak paneer. Pictured are the PB&J fries, topped with a spicy peanut satay sauce and a smoky chipotle raspberry jam.

Koi Fusion
With all the buzz about Portland’s food carts, it only makes sense they are available inside our very own airport. Carts are set up just before security, ready to serve hungry travelers. The first carts — Koi Fusion and Pok Pok — arrived in early October and proved a hit. With plans for three more carts later this year, the Portland International Airport just added another reason to the long list of why it was named the Best Airport in the United States by Travel + Leisure, for 2013 and 2014.

Maine Street Lobster
You don't have to go to Portland, Maine, to get fresh Maine lobster. You can get it in Portland, Oregon. No, not at a fancy, sit-down restaurant but at a food cart! This juicy, sweet and very fresh Maine lobster is flown in every other day. Maine Street Lobster food cart has been open at Cartlandia for a year and has become quite successful. It’s not uncommon for a customer to travel an hour and half to eat the delicious fresh lobster roll. Named one of Portland’s top five food carts by Willamette Week, Main Street Lobster lives up to the hype!

Parker's Restaurant
If you’re into culinary history, head over to Parker’s Restaurant at the Omni Parker House, where two famous items were invented: Parker House rolls and Boston cream pie.

Neptune Oyster
t was an admittedly hard decision to name Neptune Oyster as my pick for North End, since the neighborhood is home to a vibrant Italian community with many great Italian restaurants. But Neptune Oyster -- perhaps the best seafood place in Boston -- is a must for anyone visiting Boston. There are numerous fresh oysters to choose from, but Neptune makes the best (and most expensive) lobster roll in town. Order it Connecticut-style with hot drawn butter. If you still have room, don’t miss their weekly specials like shrimp and grits.

Sweet Cheeks Q
Make a beeline for Sweet Cheeks Q and their amazing buttery biscuits served with honey butter.

O Ya
If the “Good Will Hunting” boys were from Southie today, they’d probably be hipsters. The Waterfront and Leather District areas of South Boston are home to some of Boston’s most expensive restaurants and bars. One such restaurant in the nine-block Leather District is O Ya, whose omakase runs upwards of $200. O Ya doesn’t serve traditional, purist sushi, but instead plays with things like banana pepper mousse on top of nigiri. Don’t miss the foie gras nigiri, dressed with chocolate kabayaki sauce and paired with a sip of beautiful aged sake.

Coppa
South End probably has most of the great restaurants in Boston. One such restaurant is Jamie Bissonnette’s Coppa, a casual wine bar with a not-to-miss bone marrow pizza topped with beef tongue and horseradish. Chef Bissonnette won the People’s Best New Chef award presented by Food & Wine in 2011 and this place will show you why.

Ted Drewes
Perhaps the most famous St. Louis stop along the legendary Route 66, Ted Drewes Frozen Custard is known primarily for The Concrete, a milkshake so thick they'll hand it to you upside down. More than 30 mix-ins and flavors, plus numerous specialty combinations, in additions to sundaes and simple cones, make decision-making difficult. It's sweetened with honey, giving a distinctive flavor and texture. They'll sell you a Christmas tree in the winter, but are closed in January and February.