When Tomás Gonzalez brought his family to New York City from Acapulco in 1985, they settled first in the South Bronx. His new home had little in common with his old home, a port city and the tourist heart of Mexico’s Guerrero State on the Pacific Coast. But one constant remained: his desire to cook. Sr. Gonzalez spent much of his life in and around the restaurant his family ran in Acapulco, a faraway paradise that most people in the States knew only from prize holiday packages on The Price is Right. He first tried selling churros on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, but quickly realized that there were not enough Mexicans to buy them.

When you hear something go crunch on the left side of L’Eixample, whether crispy bread or churros, croquettes or socarrat, the toasted bottom of paella, there’s a good chance it came from the kitchen of Miquel Pardo. The 30-year-old chef runs his own restaurant called, appropriately, Cruix (Crunch), a place to have fun with food and discover amazing rice dishes from Castellón, a province in the Valencian Community. A native of this region, Pardo mixes his granny’s sofritos with a creativity inspired by the Adriá brothers, cooking dishes that will fill the stomachs of his relatives and friends, among whom he counts the clients of his restaurant.

The clock strikes 11:55 a.m., and the tables at Adega Solar Minhoto are already filling up with hungry customers. Many are regulars who come daily – they know that this traditional restaurant in the Alvalade neighborhood doesn’t accept bookings and is packed by midday, requiring a bit of a sprint if you don’t want to wait in line. Most workers in Lisbon take their midday meal after 1 p.m., so this is certainly an early lunch. But Adega Solar Minhoto’s fresh and delicious traditional fare, generous portions, friendly service and great value are worth rearranging your schedule for.

A commuter hub right on the Bosphorus, Beşiktaş courses with energy. In addition to the masses streaming on and off the ferries and the cars inching up and down the steep thoroughfare of Barbaros Boulevard, the neighborhood is overrun with students – Bahçeşehir University sits a few steps from the main ferry terminal. Of the many restaurants and coffee shops catering to the large student population, Yalla Falafel, a tiny corner spot, offers something different: vegetarian fare with Lebanese flavors. Judging by the many students who buzz in and out, this lighter food is preferred after a long day of studying and classes.

When it comes to food, Onofrio Ioakimidis takes his inspiration from both the north and the south. His love for cooking blossomed in Thessaloniki – he was born and raised in the northern Greek city, which is second only to Athens in terms of size and legendary for its cuisine. But his grande amore with the culinary arts really began with his grandmother Constanza. Originally from the southern Italian city of Naples, Constanza fled Italy during the difficult years of Mussolini and moved to Greece. Fate brought her to Thessaloniki and into the arms of Grigoris, who soon became her husband. Onofrio recalls a childhood spent in nonna’s kitchen, at first playing with flour and dough, and then eventually learning how to make pasta.

The name Aristaeus Ethno Wine Bar suggests many things, some puzzling but the most obvious being that wine is served. One look at the menu, though, and it becomes clear this spot is more restaurant than bar. One food item in particular caught our attention: dambalkhacho. We first heard of dambalkhacho some years back when a friend offered us hard, moldy cheese bits cut from a ball about the size of a healthy orange. It was rich, slightly peppery with a sharp, tart finish; nothing like any cheese we had ever tried.

After the Vietnamese War, many of the refugees bound for France landed in Paris. A minority spread out to other French cities like Toulouse, Lyon and Marseille, the latter being a ville refuge (refuge city) due to its bustling port. The small community in Marseille used to be concentrated near Joliette, before its building boom. But now they’re scattered across the city, taking their cuisine with them. No matter, for we know exactly where to go whenever we’ve got a hankering for Vietnamese: We join the line of people waiting for a bowl of pho outside Nguyen-Hoang.

There’s a joy in staying in China’s big cities over the upcoming Lunar New Year (春节, chūnjié). As people start the “great migration” back to their ancestral hometowns to enjoy the annual reunion dinner (团圆饭, tuányuánfàn, or 年夜饭, nián yè fàn) with their family, Shanghai becomes a ghost town. Nearly every shop and restaurant closes up for at least a week (and sometimes more like three), as employees travel back to inland provinces like Anhui and Henan for a well-earned break and the chance to eat traditional, home-cooked meals with relatives. So long as you have a well-stocked fridge, the New Year is a peaceful time to explore the empty streets.

On the forested Mt. Oyama, only one and a half hours away from Tokyo, the sleepy atmosphere is broken by a cheering crowd. It’s mid-March and women are sitting in a row on a stage, shoveling cups of tofu into their mouths as fast as they can. It is messy, distinctly inelegant and a whole lot of mad fun. These women are challengers in the Wanko Tofu speed eating competition, which also sees men and children compete in respective rounds. All this, along with a gigantic four-meter pot of boiling tofu and several other street food snacks, is part of the annual Oyama Tofu Festival, which celebrates the area’s long history of producing especially delicious tofu and marks its 30th anniversary this year.

It was a frosty dark night just before the solstice and as we walked the 10 or so minutes from the Keramikos Metro to our destination, we passed familiar favorites like A Little Taste of Home and places as yet unvisited that seemed alluring. But when we ventured further into the unknown, the street was empty both of pedestrians and lit storefronts. Where was this restaurant? A few blocks more brought us back to terra cognita. The Old Bicycle (To Palio Podilato), its window bright and with a bicycle hanging inside, turned out to be practically next door to the Benaki Museum’s Pireos Street annex, one of the city’s most exciting museums for modern art, photography and foreign exhibitions.

We’ve written previously about flautas, one of our favorite street foods. Those crisp, finger-friendly “flutes” with their deeply savory, spiced chicken, pork, beef or potato filling are all about the gratifying crunch of the golden, deep-fried rolled tortilla (and the sour cream and grated cheese don’t hurt either). It’s hard to imagine how that winning combination can be improved upon, but at El Rey de las Ahogadas in Colonia Del Valle, we’ve found a delicious alternative. Although El Rey offers quesadillas, tacos and other Mexican delicias, as the big banner above the open storefront advertises, people come here mostly for the flautas ahogadas. These “drowned” flautas sit in a bowl filled with a soupy salsa verde so that they soften.

As winter descends over Istanbul, cloaking the city in gray rain clouds that make for beautiful sunsets but unpleasant commutes, we flee the many open-air eating options in the city for cozier digs, replacing outdoor meyhane feasts and rakı toasts with homey bowls of lentil soup and steaming cups of tea. Yet when we’re craving a place that is warm in ways beyond food, the average Istanbul lokanta often leaves something to be desired. Which is why, on a recent rainy Friday evening, we were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon Galaktion, a Georgian restaurant on a cobbled side street off Taksim Square, smack dab between Istiklal Caddesi and Sıraselviler Caddesi.

Despite the image that Greece wants to sell the world as a holiday destination of eternal summer with beautiful beaches and clear water, the fact remains that it is a very mountainous country – almost a third of Greek land consists of hills and mountains. Most are forested, hosting a great diversity of ecosystems that offer fertile ground for mushrooms in particular. That said, mushrooms don’t feature prominently in traditional Greek dishes, and many people avoid them altogether, even the common cultivated varieties, from fear of getting sick. For many, meanwhile, mushrooms don’t evoke the best memories: During the 70s and 80s, the tinned variety was mainly used in cooking, as fresh cultivated mushrooms were rare and expensive.

Lunch at Casa Guedes is one of our favorite culinary rituals in Porto: After snagging a seat at the bar during the midday rush, we sit, mesmerized, as Mr. Cesar nimbly cuts slices of roasted pork shank, then places them on bread and moistens it all with his secret sauce. While not the only item on the menu, the famous sande de pernil (roast pork sandwich) is Casa Guedes’s raison d’être. After taking in Mr. Cesar’s entrancing sandwich-making choreography, we order the upgraded version of the sande, which is topped with gooey queijo Serra da Estrela, a creamy sheep’s milk cheese. Seating at this humble and low-cost eatery used to be minimal, and Casa Guedes’s popularity had long outstripped its capacity – fans could be found waiting patiently in queues stretching down the block.

The excavations at Oplontis, located in the modern city of Torre Annunziata, are often overlooked in favor of its much larger, much grander neighbor: Pompeii. Yet like all little-known things, this archeological site is full of incredible surprises, like the magnificent villa said to have belonged to Poppaea Sabina, the second wife of the Emperor Nero. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, the villa is certainly worth a visit (plus, you’ll avoid the tourists who come from far and wide to invade Pompeii). And after having “discovered” Oplontis, there is a small gastronomic treasure to be discovered: DocSicil.