Editor’s note: We regret to report that Taverna Can Roca has closed. In the neighborhood of Sant Andreu we encounter very few city visitors wandering the cobbled streets or peering at the 19th-century two-story houses that pepper this district. Through the doors of Taverna Can Roca, we find even fewer. This is a place that can be considered muy del barrio.

Here at CB Shanghai, we’ve already confessed our undying affection for the scallion oil pancakes (葱油饼, cōngyóubǐng) at A Da. Mr. Wu’s are so beautifully crafted that they take on the aura of art with their precision and flair, but we’re also a little in love with the slapdash, unconventional version fried up by an elderly couple at A Po, just a couple of blocks away.

For too long retsina has been thought of as a cheap, oxidized, overly pungent bad wine made from mediocre grapes, its poor quality disguised by an overdose of resin and exacerbated by being stored in questionable conditions in the backyards of seaside tavernas. To say the wine has an image problem is an understatement – but that may be changing. Regardless of its reputation, retsina is a true Greek original. It dates back to the Ancient Greeks, who would coat the interiors of their otherwise porous earthenware amphorae with resin to make their wine storage airtight. Wine drinkers grew to like the taste, and winemakers consequently began adding pine resin to grape must during fermentation.

In Shanghai, a pretty surefire way to tell whether a dining establishment deserves your attention or not is by the presence of a line in front of it. (A corollary might be that the amount of attention the place deserves is commensurate with the size of the line.) Lao Shaoxing Doujiang passes the test. This ramshackle stand in the Huangpu district serves traditional breakfast foods all night long. Until recently, the stand was run by a granny in her nineties who would ladle out bowls of hot soy milk (豆浆, dòujiāng) into the wee hours of the morning. She retired this year, but her less-than-friendly son has taken over, and the buzz remains (as does the inevitable line).

Immigration between the U.S. and Mexico has long been thought of as a one-way phenomenon, but global economic upheaval and other factors have made the neighbor to the south the new Land of Opportunity. As a recent New York Times article put it, for the first time “more Americans have been added to the population of Mexico over the past few years than Mexicans have been added to the population of the United States.” Nowhere is this more apparent than in Mexico City, where immigrants come not just from the U.S. or other parts of Mexico, but also Argentina, Spain, Korea – everywhere, really. And these immigrants have brought with them a new world of excellent dining options.

Editor's Note: Unfortunately, this spot is no longer open. We’ve written previously about Turkey’s passionate love affair with liver, one that can turn downright obsessive in some parts of the country. Edirne, an old Ottoman capital city about two hours out of Istanbul, is one of those places. Filled with restaurants selling the dish and nothing but, Edirne is perhaps ground zero for Turkish liver lovers. If the city’s countless liver restaurateurs had their way, Edirne’s official symbol would probably be the organ, with a giant, quivering liver sculpture greeting hungry travelers at the entrance to town. Of course, that kind of boosterism is unnecessary; for many Turks, the name Edirne is simply synonymous with liver.

We’ve written a great deal about all thetraditionalCatalan, Basque and Spanish food around town, but what about the modern, globally influenced cooking that’s taken hold in the food capitals of the world – of which Barcelona is certainly one? La Pepita is a prime specimen, with its passionate, creative young owners and food that, while anchored in the tapas tradition, reinterprets classic dishes through the cross-pollination of other cultures’ ingredients and ideas.

When the aptly named Cleopatra Theodoulou opened her restaurant, Alexandria, in the downtown Mouseio district in 1999, she not only helped in the revival of a once posh neighborhood that had fallen on hard times – she also created a vibrant culinary link to her family’s cosmopolitan past.

Favelas just aren’t what they used to be – or what you thought they were. Rio’s squatter settlements have grown up, though uneven development still leaves considerable gaps in terms of policing, sanitation, sewage and public services. But the favela label is increasingly arbitrary as Rio’s “slums” – we put that in quotes because we think that word often leads to some generous and inaccurate flights of imagination – start to look more like working-class bairros. And they’re working their way up to becoming the more intriguing and inviting parts of the carioca landscape.

We generally regard the Grand Bazaar as a place of punishment, a den of aggressive, wolf-like hustlers and innocent, lamb-like tourists wearing novelty fez hats. When we have to go, we like to think of ourselves as members of a prison SWAT team, sent in to search a cell for some specific item – Turkmen jewelry, hamam towels and, once, wedding rings.

Editor's note: We're sorry to report that ENOA has closed. Situated by the sea in the marina of Agios Kosmas, ENOA is part of a truly strange neighborhood. There are a couple of nightclubs, some cottages and the enormous, badly lit rowing and sailing buildings that have been left to molder after the 2004 Olympics – but mostly the feeling is of an abandoned wasteland by the sea. The entrance to ENOA, an area club, is equally unimpressive: a number of trophies cramped behind a glass display followed by a cavernous dining room that, with its harsh, unflattering neon lights, resembles a hotel from 1960s rural Greece.

Mushroom hunting has an irresistible, magical pull. Composer John Cage, an avid mushroom collector, found them an integral part of his creative process, once writing: “Much can be learned about music by devoting oneself to the mushroom.” Every fall, thousands of Catalans likewise find themselves under the mushroom’s spell, following the elusive fungus’s silent melody into the woods, a rustic wicker basket in one hand and – more and more these days – a GPS-enabled smartphone in the other.

Situated on a geographically blessed spot where the waters of the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara meet, Istanbul has long been associated with fishing and, especially, the eating of fish. In culinary terms, after all, is there anything more iconic in Istanbul than eating a freshly grilled fish sandwich sold from one of the bobbing boats down by the Golden Horn?

Editor’s note: We regret to report that Spice Everywhere has closed. It didn’t take long after arriving from Chicago a decade ago for Juliet Lambert to figure out what was the gaping hole in Mexico City’s otherwise rich culinary scene: an American-style brunch spot. The chef went on to start Spice, a catering company, but earlier this year was able to come up with the answer to the brunch problem when she launched Spice Everywhere, a roving pop-up that is bringing hashbrowns and waffles to the land of the tortilla.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, My family is planning a trip to Shanghai. We want to dine like the locals but also make sure our little ones get their fill. Do you have any recommendations?