When Americans think of Mexican food, their minds often turn to tortillas filled with myriad meats, beans and rice, cheese, and bright salsas. The more devout followers of Mexican tradition might crave the stewed tripe in challengingly pungent menudo, the crunchy fried crickets of the Oaxacan marketplace, the gelatinous tacos de cabeza, the street-vendor sopes, or the plate of machaca, that magical combination of gamy dried beef and egg.

It’s easy to forget, amidst all of these unique treasures, that along so much of the country’s vast coastline, the most highly prized food of all is one of the simplest: fish. In many parts of Mexico, the ideal meal is a whole fried or grilled head-and-bones-on fish—mojarra, huachinango (red snapper), or corvina (bass), perhaps—served on a big platter, ready to be devoured. Tortillas and rice and everything else take a backseat to the sea creatures at the center of the table. It is a life-affirming celebration of the local fishermen and their spoils, a ceremony of plenty.

That’s not to take away from the importance of the rest of the sea’s bounty: giant raw oysters, for example, served with a squeeze of lime and a dab of hot sauce, a Mexican spin on cocktail sauce or mignonette; a cocktail of octopus, clams, or partly cooked shrimp; fish ceviche, that wondrously tender fish appetizer that gets its cure from lime and its bounce from cilantro; or the classic plate of juicy shrimp al mojo de ajo, sautéed in garlic butter.

Lest you think we digress, all of these are descriptions of dishes served at one of Portland’s unsung gems, Puerto Marquez. So are camarones ahogados—raw shrimp marinated in a sauce of chile and lime, a rare treat that (to our knowledge) you’ll find nowhere else in the city. Enjoy the bean dip, but otherwise, avoid the non-seafood items on the menu.

The place is really out in the middle of nowhere, so it might surprise you, given the dingy sign and parking-lot entrance, that the warm red-and-orange room does a pretty good job (by strip-mall standards) of transporting you to coastal Mexico. Soccer balls and giant Modelo cans hang from the ceiling like piñatas; long banquet-style tables look ready to accommodate groups of 15 or 20. It’s fun when it’s full of people, but when it’s empty, it’s as if someone threw a big fiesta for the 6th-graders and nobody showed up.

You should take it upon yourself to help make the room full, not empty, because the charming staff is also a pleasure. Maybe the Pacific Northwest—another place where fish is of paramount importance—is the natural melting pot for Mexican coastal culture.