Find document with array that contains a specific value

A favouriteFoods is a simple array of strings, you can try to query that field directly:

PersonModel.find({ favouriteFoods: "sushi" }, ...);

But I’d also suggest to creating the string array explicit in your schema:

person = {
    name : String,
    favouriteFoods : [String]
}

mongodb is don’t have $contains operator

You can do this below code, The closest analogy to contains that mongo has is $in, using this your query would look like:

PersonModel.find({ favouriteFoods: { "$in" : ["sushi"]} }, ...);

For that situation I feel like $all would be more appropriate. If you are looking for person that is into sushi you do:

PersonModel.find({ favoriteFood : { $all : ["sushi"] }, ...})

For your searching want to filter more like so:

PersonModel.find({ favoriteFood : { $all : ["sushi", "bananas"] }, ...})

Test this : $in is like OR and $all like AND.

https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/operator/query/all/