Mexican diners offer a place for many in the capital to go for simple eats, often for people struggling to make ends meet. The key is to look for a crowded lunch bar lined with clients downing food before they have to head back to work. For example, if you find yourself strolling down 5 de Febrero, a few blocks south of the Zócalo, about to hit the new, city-funded arts district along Regina and San Jerónimo, consider Panadería La Joya. One of the classic greasy spoons downtown, La Joya stands out not for its innovation or hip atmosphere, but for its spot-on, tried-and-true renditions of Mexico’s hits. The place feels timeless. We tracked down the oldest worker, there for 40 years, and he admitted he had no idea when or who began the place.

The song “My Way” may be a staple of every karaoke bar in Japan but it’s also a fitting description for the Japanese fast food staple of “curry rice” as served at both Rojiura Samurai Curry and CoCo Ichibanya. One can find four Tokyo outposts of Rojiura Samurai Curry, a Hokkaido curry maker from Sapporo, in Hachioji, Shimokitazawa, Kakurazaka and our favorite, Kichijoji. It seems these Japanese curry masters are fond of opening shops in cool neighborhoods where the locals will appreciate the uniqueness of this favored Japanese dish. Much like ramen noodles, curry rice is adapted from a foreign cuisine as a form of fast food in Japan.

The holiday season is one of the more subdued times of the year in Mexico City. Many people leave the city for vacation or to visit family and friends in other parts of the country. We, however, tend to stick around more often than not, traveling around the city and enjoying the relative peace. That’s how we happened upon Coox Hanal, a restaurant hidden inside a century-old building in the Centro Histórico that specializes in the cuisine of the Yucatán, the peninsula that juts out into the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea like a hitchhiker’s thumb. The adventure began when we trudged up a few flights of stairs to the second-floor landing, where we found the restaurant’s entrance. It, along with the stairwell, was plastered with posters and artwork from the sun-kissed and beach-filled Yucatán.

Considering how much hype has been laden upon it since 2016, when a few galleries moved into some of its former warehouses, you’d think the light-industrial, heavily residential neighborhood of Marvila would already be out of fashion. Yet, step outside the cluster of streets hosting these art spaces, co-working hubs, brewer-bars and the famed cultural center Fabrica Braço de Prata, and Marvila as a whole still feels a long way from being the next big thing. Located between Lisbon’s airport and the river Tejo, this sprawling eastern district is mostly unchanged when you move away from the marginal and towards its heart: the expansive Parque Bela Vista.

Going to dinner at a Georgian restaurant typically means having to fast all day. The table will bulge with must-orders: tomato and cucumber salad, badrijani (eggplant stuffed with garlic and walnuts), an assortment of cheeses and wild greens, and probably pkhali (vegetable pate with walnuts) too. There will be meat, lots of meat – lamb, pork, veal and chicken that will be stewed, baked and roasted – and bread to clean the plate with. Perhaps there will be a grilled trout. And don’t forget the khachapuri, because that is just the way it is. After several hours at the table, we will make our final toasts, take one last look at the leftovers, maybe snatch a farewell nibble at a loose chive or slice of cucumber and then waddle out of the joint, with greasy grins and logy eyelids. We grunt while we plop into the taxi and groan as we struggle to climb out when we get home.

That much of the past seems to stick to Samatya is a marvel in Istanbul, a city being rebuilt and “restored” at an alarming pace. First, there’s the question of its name. Occupying a stretch of the Marmara Sea and squeezed between the old city walls and Kumkapı, an area home to a rotating cast of eclectic restaurants, the neighborhood still goes by its Greek name (Ψαμάθια or psamathia, likely derived from the Greek word psamathos, meaning sand) even though it was rechristened as Kocamustafapaşa after the foundation of the Turkish Republic. Perhaps more importantly, it’s imbued with a certain type of nostalgia.

Despite the big wooden casks on the wall and the creaky shelves crowded with bottles behind the bar, wine is no longer king at Cal Siscu, an old bodega (wine store and tavern) in Hospitalet de Llobregat, a city located on the periphery of the Barcelona metropolitan area. The new ruler, who has deigned to keep these old relics from an earlier era, is seafood – every day the bar’s counter is covered with trays of majestic treasures from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic like prawns, clams, barnacles and sea snails. Founded by Francisco “Siscu” Rosés in 1933, Cal Siscu originally sold bulk wine and liquors. At that time, the only seafood served came from a can. Customers frequented the tavern, which also doubled as a home (Siscu and his family used to live upstairs), to fill up their wine jugs and sip on a vermut with some olives and conservas like tuna or sardines.

Jay Parker, the owner of Ben’s Best in Rego Park, is a third-generation deli man. Born in 1951 and raised in the nearby Queens neighborhood of Fresh Meadows, he first worked at the family business in the early 1960s. Since 1984, when he took the reins, he’s clocked 60 to 70 hours a week. Yet “this is my dad’s store,” Jay tells us. “His name is still on it.” Not far from where we sit in the dining room, a portrait of Ben Parker looks on, as if in agreement. Ben’s Best is a kosher delicatessen, an increasingly rare business model even in New York. A kosher deli adheres to Jewish dietary laws (by serving, say, corned beef on rye but not ham on rye) and operates under rabbinical supervision (otherwise it would be merely “kosher-style”).

It was the first of April and an absolutely pristine Istanbul spring day, the kind where one can break a slight sweat walking up a hill then catch a cool breeze in a nearby patch of shade. Returning to the city from a lovely weekend on Büyükada, we were smitten with spring and wanted to indulge in its finest offerings. In a fit of hunger-fueled inspiration, we quickly realized what we were craving: yenidünya kebabı. This spring-only affair is a specialty from southeast Turkey’s Gaziantep where chunks of minced beef and/or lamb are skewered in between sections of newly arisen yenidünya, or loquat, diminutive orange fruits that are as tantalizingly tart as they are sweet.

It’s no easy task handling a 70-kilo longfin tuna or a 20-kilo corvina. But over the past few weeks, we’ve watched our favorite fishmongers in Lisbon’s Mercado da Ribeira do just that – looking more like weightlifters or wrestlers, they endeavor to fillet the big, fat Atlantic fish that usually make their appearance in April. Even more humble specimens, like mackerel, are also at their fattest (and tastiest) come spring. That’s the joy of feasting on spring fish and seafood in Portugal – so much is in season that you can’t go wrong. To get a better sense of this spring’s “gifts from the sea,” we visited some of our favorite chefs to learn about how they are building their menus around seasonal fish and seafood.

If you were to ask me what my ideal lunch is, I would answer without hesitation: paccheri alla Genovese with a large piece of stewed veal shank for the first course, followed by a big ball of buffalo mozzarella (preferably from Tenuta Vannulo, an organic buffalo dairy in Capaccio) with eggplant parmigiana on the side. The backbone of this perfect meal is the Genovese, a simple yet miraculous sauce made of meat (veal, beef or pork) and a heap of onions (red or white). Even those who say they don’t like the taste of onions are forced to recant once they taste the Genovese (after hours spent simmering with the meat, the tenderized and translucent onion slivers have no trace of the astringent smell or bite of raw onions).

Today a residential neighborhood four kilometers north of downtown Athens, Galatsi was once comprised of endless fields where shepherds grazed their flocks. Until the mid-19th century, this area at the foot of the Tourkovounia hill range was uninhabited – the shepherds had free rein. All that changed some 150 years ago when the hills began to be quarried for building materials, particularly lime; workers at the lime kilns eventually became the neighborhood’s first residents. But the local shepherds didn’t immediately pack up and leave. In fact, according to one local legend, they inadvertently gave the new neighborhood its name. To sell their milk to the recently arrived residents, the shepherds would roam the streets shouting “Gala, gala, fresko gala” (Milk, milk, fresh milk). It was this constant cry that supposedly led people to call the neighborhood Galatsi.

Most tascas’ walls are covered with tiles, framed family or hometown pictures and soccer teams’ scarves. But inside A Provinciana, located between the neighborhoods of Restauradores and Rossio, the main decorative objects are dozens of original handmade wall clocks. Some work, some don’t, but all have great meaning for Américo, the owner of this establishment that has been around for 70-plus years. “I built them. All of them. Every Sunday, our day off, I sit at my house building these clocks with what I have: old tiles, bits of wood, pieces of barrel,” he says, glancing proud at his creations.

Istanbul’s T1 tramway is relatively pleasant if you can find a seat, but borders on unbearable if you are on your feet. Back in 2015, we wrote about a trip we took from the line’s first stop all the way to one of its last, which lies way out in the district of Güngören. By the time the tram has made it to this point, it begins to perplexingly share a lane with traffic, voiding the whole point of this type of public transportation. On one weekday evening, we found ourselves standing in a rather contorted position on the beyond-crammed train, a price we were willing to pay for a trip to one of our favorite culinary hotspots. The journey took over an hour. It was well worth it.

Up in Barcelona’s hills, in the El Coll neighborhood, where the city ends and the sky is cut by the spiky shapes of the pine trees in Collserola Park, Agreste de Fabio & Roser is sprouting up. Emphasizing sustainability and healthy eating, the restaurant is creating delicious dishes that merge Catalan and Italian traditions with contemporary flourishes. Room manager Roser Asensi and her partner, chef Fabio Gambirasi, created this project (the name means “bad weed” in Spanish) less than a year ago and people are already singing their praises. On a recent visit, we could hear words of admiration from different guests flying around the room over the course of our meal.