Samburna is one of the Seattle area’s best options for Indian food, and is rare in focusing on well-executed South Indian cuisine. The owners of the restaurant grew up in Tamil Nadu, on the Southern tip of the Indian Subcontinent, where dosa is a staple, and the restaurant serves several excellent versions, including one that’s over three feet in length; all dosas are served with sambar and a variety of chutneys. The goat curry is also a must-try, and madras coffee with a milk-based dessert makes a nice end to the meal. Order Samburna to go, or enjoy a meal with quick service in the dining room.

This Thai restaurant, which started off as Fremont Noodle House in 1995, consistently offers some of the best Thai classics in town, served with carefully crafted cocktails in a restaurant space with a large outdoor patio. The yum tua fahk yow is a nicely balanced dish of prawns, ground pork and toasted coconut in a tangy-sweet coconut milk sauce, the papaya salad is funky with small dried shrimp, and the khao soi’s turmeric-heavy broth is restorative.

Despite doing brisk business, it seems this Caribbean-themed restaurant is on the radar of only those in the neighborhood; otherwise, it's not nearly as celebrated as similar shops like Un Bien and Paseo. But the sandwich and plate selection here is much broader, and the flavors just as indulgent, with ingredients like braised pork, jerk chicken, yucca fries, and fried plantains.

This pint-sized restaurant (with just a few tables inside) next to a laundromat in the University District serves some of the best Chinese food in the city. The focus here is on Northeastern Chinese dishes, like the braised pork ribs potatoes and green beans, but the menu also includes dishes from other parts of China, and the fried rice dishes here are consistently satisfying. It also serves particularly refreshing jellyfish salad with cucumber matchsticks. Open for indoor dining and takeout.

Wallingford’s Union Saloon is flying criminally under the radar. The restaurant maintains a convivial combination of neighborhood watering hole and high-brow comfort food. The kitchen composes dishes that range from thoughtful seasonal vegetable small plates to downright delicious twists on comfort food like barbecue brisket and fried chicken. The attention to detail here makes it clear this is a labor of love.

This Lower Queen Anne (Uptown) Mexican restaurant receives shockingly little recognition considering the breadth and consistent quality of its menu. The red pozole here is deeply satisfying with big, juicy, tender pieces of pork, and the green ceviche is balanced and generously portioned. Go on a weekday lunch, and you’ll have the restaurant almost all to yourself.

Omega Ouzeri's bright white and blue space on Capitol Hill transports diners to the Greek isles, where fresh seafood lands on the plate with an array of fresh ingredients from a deeply flavorful playbook. Meals can be assembled family-style, from multiple shared plates, and it all goes down smoothly with sips of ouzo.

Saigon Vietnam Deli has a longstanding reputation for quick, inexpensive eats. Banh mi options include pork, chicken, fish, tofu, and more, all around $4.50. The deli serves other grab-and-go items like fresh spring rolls and sesame balls. Though there’s no seating area, this busy deli is the definition of a hidden gem.

Lillian Anaya Quintanilla has been selling her golden-brown, crispy pupusas and banana-leaf-wrapped tamales at farmers markets around the Seattle area for more than 10 years, drawing customers willing to wait up to an hour for her food and Salvadoran-style horchata. On March 9, she finally opened her first restaurant, Lily’s Salvadorean Restaurant, in a large space in West Seattle, which now has a full bar serving beer, wine, micheladas, palomas, and margaritas. The chile rellenos on the menu, unlike the Mexican version which are filled just with cheese, are stuffed with pork or chicken with green beans, carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms. The Salvadoran carne asada plate has thicker cuts than those at most Mexican restaurants and is served with chorizo sausage, fresh cheese, rice, beans, and avocado. But Quintanilla’s specialty is still her pupusas and the horchata de Morro, made with ground peanuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, and rice.

Chef Evan Leichtling and partner Meghna Prakash’s 14-seat brick-walled restaurant on Rainier Avenue doesn’t play by the rules. Inside, industry insiders chat with staff about the newest bottles in their hand-written list of natural wine, while punk rock blasts through the speakers and Leichling brings out plates of whatever he decided to cook that night. Menus change daily and are posted on a dedicated Instagram, and dishes are served until they run out. Leichtling is a Seattle industry veteran who used to work at Lark, and he spent five years cooking at some of the finest restaurants in San Sebastian and Paris. His dishes use the most compelling seasonal ingredients prepared in ways that best bring out their flavors. On a recent menu: juicy smoked mussels with celery on sourdough, whole quail with nettles in a cream sauce, salt cod with squid ink rice, and a burning hot Scotch bonnet ice cream. Perhaps because of the restaurant’s unique service style, or because it started during the height of the pandemic, Off Alley still flies criminally under the radar in Seattle’s food scene.

Amy’s Merkato in Hillman City offers an impressive selection of Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Mediterranean dishes, as well as a coffee bar and market. Standouts include the veggie combo, beef or lamb tibs, foul, and falafel plate.

Wilfredo and Elvi Reyes opened the Seattle area’s only full-service Guatemalan restaurant in a Kent strip mall in 2019, which they decorated with bright photos of symbols of their home country: a yellow clocktower on an arch in the country’s old capital, the volcanic lake Atitlán, and the turquoise-colored national bird (the resplendent quetzal). Since then, diners have flocked to the restaurant to eat comforting pre-colonial dishes like banana-leaf tamales made with loroco and chipilín (both indigenous Central American plants) while upbeat salsa music plays. The Spanish-influenced, slow-grilled churrasco chapin strip steak, marinated with tomato and garlic, is one of the best steaks in Seattle, and the tostada topped with chow mein (a popular Guatemalan street food) provides a satisfying contrast of crispy tostada and soft noodle. The restaurant also serves Guatemalan breakfast foods, a comforting atol de elote, and fried plantains stuffed with a sweet bean mixture.