Catalan owners, Filipino chefs and a menu offering comfort food inspired by the cooking of Iberian sailors: La Flauta, a restaurant-cum-tapas-bar that goes long both on good taste and good value, is an excellent reminder of the benefits of Barcelona’s being a port town.

[Editor's note: We're sorry to report that A Da Cong You Bing has closed.] In China, where queuing isn’t part of the culture, a long line of hungry diners patiently waiting for their food is just about the highest compliment a restaurant can receive. By those standards, Mr. Wu’s scallion oil pancakes are, hands down, one of the most sought-after breakfast treats in Shanghai. The line that stretches out his kitchen’s back door and wraps around the street corner means that fans of his savory pancakes can wait for hours, gulping in the scallion-scented air as they look forward to their chance to sink their teeth into the real thing. Scallion oil pancakes (葱油饼, cōngyóubǐng) are a common breakfast treat in Shanghai, but when Mr. Wu makes them, the little savory rounds stuffed with salty pork and scallions become an art form.

Twenty years ago, lilong, the tiny alleyways and courtyard houses that make up the backstreets of Shanghai, were packed with tiny mom-and-pop restaurants serving longtang cai, alleyway cuisine, to office workers and neighboring residents. But as the city’s construction boom demolished many of these lanes, the longtang dishes went back into grandmothers’ kitchens, only available to those who were heading home for lunch.

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.