Last week we had a hankering for baked brains, and in Tbilisi that used to mean only one thing – a visit to Alani, the Ossetian restaurant near the sulfur baths in Old Tbilisi. The venue is named after the ancient North Caucasus kingdom of the Alans, ancestors of the modern-day Ossetians; one might think this unpopular in a country that lost a war against Ossetian separatists (and Russians) in 2008, but the fact that it is highly regarded is testament to Georgia’s paradoxically tolerant nature. Of course, it helps to have consistently quality cooking too.

From 6 a.m., Tuesdays through Sundays, over 500 customers – from housewives to Michelin-starred restaurateurs – stream into a two-story, tile-front fish market in working-class Ponta d’Areia, a neighborhood in Niteroi, across Guanabara Bay from Rio de Janeiro. Since 2 a.m., stall owners have been out greeting fishing boats at docks across the city, where captains return from four- to 10-day trips along Brazil’s southeast coast, up to the Lake Region (Região dos Lagos, which includes the cities of Maricá, Saquarema and Cabo Frio, still in Rio de Janeiro state) and south to the state coastlines of São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina.

As we’ve written here before, if you do a little rooting around, the Grand Bazaar can be as much about the food as it is about the shopping. Case in point: Aynen Dürüm, a microscopic kebab shack at the edge of the sprawling bazaar that serves exceptionally good wraps (or, as they’re called in Turkish, dürüm).

Chalkida, the small peninsula on central Evia (Euboea) just an hour’s drive from Athens, is an ideal day-trip destination for urbanites. It’s famous for an unusual phenomenon, in which the tide in the Strait of Evripos changes direction several times a day, and it’s also known among tourists for its fresh and delicious fish and seafood. When Chalkideans want fresh seafood, however, they head to the less touristed town of Nea Artaki, just north of Evia’s main city. In the tiny port, there’s a classic promenade lined with taverns, and the penultimate, Teskos, is our favorite destination. On a recent visit, the weather was beautiful, sunny and cool enough for us to sit on the sidewalk adjacent to the sea.

Planning dim sum with friends at Jade Garden might require “Save the Date” cards: The flagship restaurant of Hong Kong’s Maxim’s group is the hottest table in town and – at the time of printing – the next available reservation is six months away. For yum cha aficionados who aren’t deterred by hours-long queues, the Jade Garden does save some tables, but it’s less of a walk-in and more of a mass sit-in.

As soon as spring has sprung, Shanghai’s expat population flocks to the many patios, rooftops and terraces of the city’s dining establishments to eat and drink, but finding a Chinese restaurant with an outdoor space, especially one in the sun, can be difficult. However, just because the sun is out doesn’t mean you have to eat Western. We’ve rounded up five great places in town where you can wield your chopsticks while soaking up your daily dose of Vitamin D. In no particular order:

Sooner or later almost everyone in Athens, tourist or local, heads for the flea market, the city’s oldest bazaar, below Monastiraki Square. Although it’s busiest on Sundays, all week long you can rummage through the antiques – furniture, bric-a-brac, mirrors, paintings, vintage toys, statuettes, vases, silverware – spread out in colorful disorder in front of the small shops that line all four sides of Avissinia Square.

In our recent explorations of Mexico City’s Azcapotzalco neighborhood, we were taken to a taquería that was going to “blow our minds,” according to our host. After having some drinks at El Dux de Venecia, the oldest surviving cantina in the city, we headed around the corner to Los Parados de Pepe for a visit.

The thought of eating eel can be off-putting, yet the super-fragrant, umami-tasting, velvety-textured delicacy is one of Japan’s prized foods. A best bet for dining like a true Tokyoite is to include an unagi (freshwater eel) meal at one of Tokyo’s top unagi restaurants serving only the one delicacy. The first Japanese character in the Japanese word for unagi (う) resembles the meter-long fish, and most unagi places enthusiastically employ imaginative ways to display their specialty on signs outside the restaurant. The fish can be expensive, depending on quality, and is highly prized for its preparation, taste and nutrition, being high in Vitamin A, B-complex, protein and calcium.

Between the modernist Burle Marx promenade lining the Copacabana beach and the Brazilian penchant for striving to be the country of the future, it’s easy to forget that Rio is rich with history. The centuries have seen the waxing and waning of an empire.

The Yaveş Gari Bodrum chapter of the international Slow Food movement organized the first Slow Cheese Festival of Turkey, which took place March 5 to 8 this year. We were lucky enough to experience it for ourselves. Local food cultures and small-scale food producers everywhere are at risk of disappearing due to the market economy and industrialized food production, and Slow Food’s various initiatives aim to help them survive and to educate the public about their cultural and gastronomic value. Dairy products in particular are under threat from immense regulation, which decreases diversity and imposes an often insupportable financial burden on small producers. Moreover, as Slow Food says, “It is not simply a question of the best milk and cheeses – our food culture and the freedom to choose what we eat are at stake.”