Hong Kong native and Cha’s owner Charlie Lau became a restaurateur because of a hankering. A movie producer by day, Lau came to Shanghai with Ang Lee to film “Lust/Caution,” and was disappointed that Shanghai lacked a proper Hong Kongese cha canting, a casual all-day eatery that serves traditional Cantonese food alongside milk teas and coffee. So he decided to open his own. On the set of “Lust,” a 1930s period piece, Lau was responsible for ensuring the historical accuracy of the costumes, casting and set design, so it’s not surprising that he designed Cha’s with the past in mind. Walking across the restaurant’s threshold transports you to 1950s Hong Kong.

In the evolutionary process of the Istanbul fish restaurant, there was a moment in the late 1990s when the amphibious, shore-hugging boat restaurants crawled out of the Bosphorus and became land dwellers. Overnight, yellow Wellington boots became black loafers as seafaring grill men became restaurateurs and waiters.

Beyond the kebab – and what you will find listed in most guidebooks for Istanbul – lies a wide range of unique Turkish regional cuisines and restaurants with hints of Balkan, Caucasian and Middle Eastern cooking. The city has been a crossroads of numerous civilizations for centuries and, more recently, a magnet for migrants from across Turkey, with every group that has either come through or stayed put adding their ingredients to Istanbul’s culinary stew. Thanks to this, one of the joys of visiting Istanbul is that, in terms of eating, it’s possible to visit every one of Turkey’s varied regions – and even a few neighboring countries – without ever leaving the city limits. With restaurants serving everything from the Middle Eastern-influenced kebabs of Southeast Turkey to the homey, rib-sticking soul food of the Black Sea area in the North, Istanbul has truly become the culinary Babel of the country.

Dining like a local in Shanghai often requires a small leap of faith. You have to forget about ambience and brave tough crowds with even tougher elbows to join the raucous, slurping masses with their steamers of the city’s famous soup dumplings, xiǎolóngbāo. Even with its thriving economy and sky-high construction boom, Shanghai still has a street food culture that is deliciously cheap and easy to find. To become a part of the appetizing fun, just look one street off the main road or wander into the city’s disappearing lilong (里弄, alleyways), which more often than not are teeming with Chinese pancake hawkers, wonton shops or makeshift grills emitting the smoky aroma of charred lamb kebabs.

It all started about six years ago, when Cretan cuisine – food from Crete, one of Greece’s largest and most famous islands – became fashionable in Athens. Suddenly, Cretan restaurants started popping up all around the city.

Sometimes a word in Chinese so perfectly captures a mood or feeling that the English approximation seems woefully inadequate. To take one example, the Chinese combine “hot” (热) and “noise” (闹) to describe the loud and lively nature of local hotspots, but in English, the best we can do is “bustling.” To experience what China’s “hot noise” is really all about, head to Wei Xiang Zhai. Not for the claustrophobic or timid, this wildly popular noodle house demands that you elbow your way to a table for your chance to slurp down a bowl of the city’s best sesame paste noodles (麻酱面, májiàng miàn). Don’t be intimidated by the Chinese-only menu here. It may look long and complicated, but over the years, the character for “sold out” (无) has become a permanent menu fixture, collecting dust and reminding diners that once, long ago, there were other options here.