In typical Shanghai fashion, good things come to those willing to stand in the longest lines, or to pre-book the farthest in advance. We’ve seen the queue for braised duck at Guang Ming Cun swell to several hours long during the Chinese New Year, and A Da's scallion pancakes require a minimum hourlong wait on most days, yet we had never expected the same for the humble zòngzi (粽子).

Shanghai is a street food lovers' paradise, with carts slinging dumplings, pancakes, noodles, buns and grilled meats on sidewalks across the city, morning, noon and night. These are a few of our favorites. 1: Shengjianbao A Shanghai specialty, shēngjiān mántou (生煎馒头) – or shēngjiān bāo (生煎包), as they’re known everywhere else in China – are juicy pork buns wrapped in bread dough, then arranged in a flat, oil-slicked wok in which the bottoms are deep-fried till they are crispy. Although shengjian mantou can be found on most street corners in the morning, we’re especially fond of the delicious misshapen buns at Da Hu Chun. A Chinese Time-Honored Brand (老字号, lǎozìhào), Da Hu Chun has been splattering grease since the 1930s and, nearly 80 years later, has six restaurants across Shanghai. The venue’s chefs use the rare “clear water” technique, frying the pinched side of the dough face-up to create little Frankenstein buns that might not be as photogenic as the more common “troubled water” variety, but that have a thinner skin that gets extra crisp – and we’ll sacrifice good looks any day if it means better flavor. 2: Guotie

On one of Shanghai’s busiest shopping streets, amidst the glittering Tiffany & Co, Piaget and Apple stores, Guang Ming Cun is housed in a nondescript four-story building. Glass displays in front offer a glimpse of the braised and dried meats for sale, and around the side you can peek in to watch flaky meat pastries being flipped in a flat wok. But it’s the long lines of middle-aged shoppers patiently waiting outside the building that make Guang Ming Cun unmistakable. During Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival, these lines can reach up to five hours long.

The official cold blew in last month. Winds pierced thick cotton clothing through to the skin, into the body and further into the bone while we were driving in the open rickshaw, after the sun slipped down. Then it rained and thundered, the kind that makes one jump with the clap. When the morning air hit the airways, balminess laced with pollution infiltrated the atmosphere. To get and stay warm is work here. We seek out the afternoon sun to heat our bodies and dry our clothes. Another way to keep the chills at bay is to ensure a supply of dense foods and hot liquids.

When you first spot him, he’s opening a bottle of beer behind the counter. Two seconds later, he’s already outside the bar, preparing a table on the sidewalk for a newly arrived customer. You blink your eyes and … there he is, writing up a check and making change. A moment later, he’s asking you if everything’s okay, checking whether your bottle of beer is still full, gently inquiring as to why you haven’t yet ordered that sandwich he knows you love. And if he happens to disappear for a few minutes, you can be certain he’s delivering some beer a few blocks away.

Editor’s note: The year is coming to an end, which means it’s time for us to look back on all the great eating and drinking experiences we had in 2014 and name our favorites among them. Ferro e Farinha We have the Fulbright Program to thank for this newcomer – a one-of-a-kind Rio dining destination. Pizza chef and New Yorker Sei Shiroma had put out a Craigslist ad looking for a roommate, and a Brazilian exchange student studying linguistics answered it. The two went from being roommates to eventually marrying. This gave Shiroma a motive to bring his mobile pizza oven down to Rio, where he gained a devoted Facebook following in spite of the very un-carioca style of dining he was proposing. (Eating with your hands, on the street? The concept does bear some similarity to the cheap drunk food of the podrões – the “rotten” food trucks that dot Rio’s streets late through the night.)

In Mexico, small business owners and entrepreneurs often display high levels of ingenuity. Take the case of El Vilsito, a taquería in the Narvarte neighborhood that does double duty as an auto repair shop.

Rio’s small traditional bars, known as botequins, are by definition simple establishments, where orders are usually taken down with pen and paper – and sometimes not taken down at all, but mentally noted. But even in these fuss-free eateries, times they are a-changin’.

Feio, which means “ugly” in Portuguese, is also the fortunate nickname of the owner of one of the most unique bars in Rio. Mr. Feio (his real name is Sebastião) is a former baker who decided 20 years ago to open a botequim, the typical carioca bar. In order to differentiate his establishment from the other botequins in the neighborhood of Méier, Feio decided to serve grilled quail (codorna) – a bird that is not traditional to Brazilian gastronomy. The idea was an immediate local hit.

Editor's note: We're sorry to report that the vendors and restaurants at Sipalou Lu and Fangbang Lu have suffered the same fate as those on Wujiang Lu and have been shut down. For street food, head to the area around Er Guang. In the lead-up to the 2010 World Expo, the government tore down one of Shanghai’s most famous food streets, Wujiang Lu, so the city would appear more “civilized” in the eyes of businesspeople and tourists visiting from around the world. Sparkling cookie-cutter international brands replaced family-run hawker stalls, and Wujiang Lu’s fried bun purveyors and stinky tofu vendors were scattered across the city. But its sad fate, which left a gaping hole in the city’s culinary landscape, also created new opportunities, allowing Fangbang Lu to become one of the city’s top food streets.

And the winner is... Okay, okay, it’s nothing like the Oscar ceremony. But everyone in attendance at Comida di Buteco 2014 – the most important popular gastronomy competition in Rio – did hold a collective breath moments before the winner was announced. When the hostess proclaimed Bar da Frente the victor, the Rio Scenarium, the old theater in Lapa where the award ceremony was held, almost came down. Screams, tears, emotional speeches – there was definitely some similarity to the Academy Awards, we have to say. After a month of extremely hard work and profound hope for the 31 bars that took part in the competition for “best botequim food” in town, this was the moment we had all been waiting for.

After Portugal, Spain is second in exerting the most influence over the traditional bars and botequins of Rio. Even though the number of immigrants from Spain is less than that of Germany or Italy, the Spanish, like the Portuguese, took over much of the popular commerce in the city at the end of 19th century and the first half of the 20th.

Brazil, as everybody knows, was colonized by the Portuguese. But even with the end of colonial Brazil, the Portuguese continued to come: at the beginning of the 20th century, thousands of them immigrated to flee poverty in Europe and to start anew in Brazil – especially in Rio. As the capital of the colony for more than 400 years, Rio has been the most influenced by Portuguese traditions, architecture and, of course, gastronomy.

Unwieldy English restaurant names often lose a lot in translation. Take Zhu Que Men, or “The Gate of the Vermillion Bird.” The name, which draws on Chinese astrology and Taoism, might seem a little highfalutin’ for a home-style noodle joint, but the subtext speaks volumes.

Some people argue that it’s not KFC’s secret blend of 11 herbs and spices that makes their fried chicken so successful, but rather the cooking technique. Deep-frying the chickens in a pressure cooker saved on oil and time in the 1930s, making the crispy bone-in chicken a feasible option for fast-food chains. Until this new gizmo became popular, the fast-food industry was almost exclusively made up of quick-serve burgers and fries.