Tucked away in an alley in Istanbul’s Aksaray neighborhood, Şirket Alahdab is a small grocery store overflowing with Syrian staples: pickled baby eggplants, dried leafy greens, cans of clotted cream for desserts. When we enter the store, Istanbul temporarily fades away and Damascus or Aleppo take its place. “All real,” the clerk declares proudly, as he shows off his goods. “Smuggled from Syria.”

“No hamsi, no money.” Mert Kanal hoses down empty Styrofoam containers and surveys the leftover catch in his market in Sinop, on Turkey’s Black Sea coast. The gulls squawk, fighting over scraps on the dock while fishermen tidy their nets for another night of fishing. The hamsi, or anchovies, are gone for the season, moving up the coast in dwindling numbers as hulking factory ships chase them. While mackerel, turbot and whiting are all fair game for fishmongers, hamsi holds a special place in Turkish cuisine. Unlike the slimy, salty canned form of the fish reserved for eccentric pizza toppings in North America, anchovies are eaten fresh in Turkey. Lightly battered, quickly fried and served with a slice of lemon, hamsi are gobbled down by the kilo, bones and all.

Editor's note: The chef and owners of Mekan have moved on to a new location, which they've named Mari. We're sorry to report that Mekan itself has since gone downhill. In the great multicultural Anatolian kitchen, questions about the ethnic or national origins of foods are often cause for forks and knives to fly. A porridge called keşkek is a hot-button diplomatic issue between Turkey and Armenia, and we won’t even get started on the ongoing baklava debate. So what to make of this cuisine that draws influences from every corner of the former Ottoman lands, a territory stretching from the Balkans to North Africa? The answer might be in a simple term that’s becoming popular among Turkey’s minorities. The word Türkiyeli means “of Turkey” and differs significantly (and quite intentionally) from the word Türk, which often adds ethno-religious shades to nationality.

Ali Bey, the owner of a cubby-sized restaurant in Küçük Pazarı called Kısmet, sounded a bit like Bubba Gump listing the items on his menu: “We've got chicken soup, fried chicken gizzards, shredded chicken breast, dark chicken meat too, chicken and rice, chicken with onions and peppers, and chicken breast pudding for something sweet.”

The roaring '20s: Flappers in the Pera Palas Hotel were dancing the can-can, Art Deco was all the rage, the Turkish Republic was born. Hope, progress and newness double-stepped to the beat of Kemal Atatürk’s drum. This was the backdrop to which two Istanbul bakers, Filip and Yorgi, opened a whimsical chapter in the culinary story of the city

The smell and the smoke attract us like a magnet. We can’t see them, but there are sardines being grilled over charcoal somewhere nearby. We are in Largo do Chafariz de Dentro, where the Fado Museum is, and the strong smell of the popular deep-fried farturas (a big churro) goes unnoticed due to the overwhelming – and delicious! – smell of grilled sardines everywhere.

Until a few years ago, breakfast eateries were not very common in Rio. Cariocas would have breakfast at home or at a bakery, while tourists had to make do with the always-boring "Continental breakfast" offered at hotels. But thankfully, everything has changed.

Just up the Golden Horn from the Egyptian Spice Bazaar is Küçük Pazarı, a rarely explored warren of market streets and Ottoman-era caravanserais that are home to scissors sharpeners, saddle shops, vendors selling axle grease (by the vat) and purveyors of axes. From this potpourri of run-down yet extremely photogenic shops, one storefront, decorated with candy canes and Turkish delight, beckons from a distance like a foodie mirage. Welcome to Altan Şekerleme – or, better yet, Candyland.

Mexican sweets might not be as world-famous as those from the U.S., France or Switzerland, but judging by the enormous variety of pastry, candy and chocolate made and consumed domestically, Mexicans have an insatiable sweet tooth. And chocolate, of course, is one of Mexico’s gifts to the world.

It’s hard to imagine Istanbul without its pastane windows stacked high with trays of ivory-colored flaky mille-feuille and coolers lined with row after row of chocolate-topped éclairs. And of course, the sweets scene in Istanbul would not be complete without the much-loved profiterole. Generations of İstanbullu have taken pleasure in these French exotics, but at some point they became part of the local dessert canon, complete with their new Turkish ID, milföy and ekler. Their origins, their journey to Istanbul, if still relevant, have been more or less wiped clean from the memory of the city.

With 4,500 miles of coastline, the world’s largest river by volume (the Amazon), more than 10,000 miles of waterways and the largest amount of fresh water on the planet, Brazil suffers from a certain gastronomical misperception. Yes, this is a country that loves beef, prominently on display in popular Brazilian churrascarias.

Editor’s note: This post was written by “Meliz,” an intrepid explorer of Istanbul’s culinary backstreets and frequent Istanbul guest contributor who would like to keep her anonymity. It all started with Laz böreği. It was not just any Laz böreği that showed up at the dinner party that evening, but perfect Laz böreği: layers of yufka (phyllo), buttery and moist, dusted with confectioner’s sugar, in a symbiotic balance with the custard, which was neither too sweet, nor too eggy, neither too runny, nor too stiff. Juuuust right. Goldilocks would have been proud. And, it turns out, this stuff is addictive.

On a night out in Istanbul, we often find ourselves forced to make sacrifices in one or more categories of the overall dining experience. Great food at reasonable prices will surely be laid out in a room decorated in Anatolian kitsch.

In our imaginary primetime lineup, a reality show called “Pimp My Kebab Salon” transforms a drab kebab shop into a grill palace suited to the tastes of the latter-day sultans. Surfaces are suddenly gilded in gold, fountains appear and everything is reupholstered under the watchful eye of the boisterous host with tacky taste. If this TV series existed, a much-loved classic episode would take place at Hatay Has Kral Sofrası, a zany kebab restaurant in a part of the Aksaray district filled with lots of other establishments selling food from Southeast Turkey.