Our trip to Taquería Los Parados in Roma Sur last month began like any other: we gathered up four friends and began the trek to this beloved taco spot. But the dark, moody sky threatened rain, and in anticipation of a gushing downpour, we piled into a cab minutes before the first giant, icy cold rain drops began to pelt down. As was so often the case on July and August evenings in Mexico City, we were at the mercy of the Aztec rain god Tlaloc. Our destination, Los Parados, is one on a short list of taco joints usually shouted at full volume to rally the hungry boozers after a Roma-Condesa bar crawl. On this night, however, it was the taxi itself getting sloshed.

Spurred on by rain and humidity, wild mushrooms hit the markets of Mexico City this time of year. An extraordinary variety of mushrooms are available, mostly culled from the wilds of the states of Mexico, Hidalgo, Morelos and Puebla, and chefs stop by the market every day to see what new goodies will appear.

“His name was Mr. Antonio, and they called him the captain,” says 35-year-old Giusy Aiese, launching into the story of La Taverna del Buongustaio. “He was a wine producer from the province of Caserta, and he established a wine-making cellar here in the Fascist period, around 1930.” As we listen to Giusy recount the history of the tavern, we can’t help but think about hers: she comes from a family tree brimming with lovers of Neapolitan cuisine. Her 65-year-old father, Gaetano, a genius in the kitchen, has run La Taverna del Buongustaio since 1996, the year he bought the restaurant from Francesco de Micco, another excellent cook and, funnily enough, Gaetano’s wedding witness.

We met Don Tirso in the center of Santa Ana Tlacotenco, one of 12 villages in Milpa Alta, Mexico City’s southernmost delegation, on a sunny and cool morning. The road from village to village in Milpa Alta snakes through fields and around ancient volcanoes, slowly climbing up the mountains that overlook the beast of a city to which it formally belongs. We take a truck to his property, part of a farming cooperative ceded to the campesinos (farmers) following Mexico’s decade-long revolution that ended in 1920, which focused heavily on agrarian reform. In his village, the city’s only rural area covered with forests and farms, his generation of elders is the one that mostly carries the torch of their direct connection to the Aztec past.

The geography of Lavrion, a seaside town located in southeast Attica, about a 45-minute drive from downtown Athens, has played a big role in shaping its population. The most important factor is Lavrion’s proximity to the sea. With an abundance of fish and seafood at its doorstep, as well as a marina and port, it’s not wonder that a large portion of the town’s population are fishermen. Perhaps not as obvious, considering it’s more concealed nature, is Lavrion’s mining industry. Since before 3,000 B.C., the area was famed for its silver and lead mines. Although abandoned in the 2nd century B.C., the mines were re-opened in 1864, attracting a large number of miners who eventually settled in the town.

The owners of Zuari and Delícias de Goa, two of the most traditional Goan restaurants in Lisbon, share not only similar backgrounds – both migrated from Goa to Mozambique before settling in Portugal – but also the dedication to keeping family traditions alive.

Vasco de Gama’s voyage to India in the late 15th century laid the groundwork for the Portuguese empire, in which Goa, a small region on the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent with ample natural harbors and wide rivers, would come to play an important role. In the early 16th century, Goa was made the capital of the Portuguese State of India and remained as such until 1961, when the Indian army captured it. Over four centuries of colonial rule, Goan intellectuals most often migrated to Portugal in search of education, especially in the 20th century. Yet following the annexation of Goa by India, many Goans, particularly those working in government and the military, accepted the state’s offer of Portuguese citizenship and made their way to Europe.

We had no sooner finished unpacking our Tbilisi lives from the car for a Garikula summer, when our neighbor Zakhar stopped by to welcome us with a firm handshake and a bristly cheek kiss. He sat down and immediately told us about a restaurant he had recently visited in Kavtiskhevi, a neighboring village about 12 kilometers away. He was deeply smitten. “Wha!” he boomed. “The fish, straight from the river! Trout! Delicious! Come on, let’s go. I’ll bring my wine!”

Each year in late summer, some of the best athletes on the planet converge on Flushing Meadows Corona Park to compete in the United States Open Tennis Championships. In 2018, the U.S. Open begins with practice sessions and qualifier matches on Tuesday, August 21, and concludes with the men’s singles final, scheduled for Sunday, September 9. The tournament site does provide hungry fans with several cafés and casual bar-restaurants as well as a pair of “food villages.” But when in Queens – where some of the best food in the city is so close at hand – why would we confine ourselves to the boundaries of the tennis center? To energize ourselves beforehand or wind down afterward, here are a few of our favorite nearby dining destinations.

It’s dinnertime and every table is full at Hayata Sarıl Lokantası, a cozy restaurant with crisp white walls, a patterned-tile floor, and cheery flowers on the café-style tables. “Are you going to serve that sometime tonight?” a floor manager barks sarcastically into the cramped kitchen, where black-apron-clad servers scramble to fill new plates while a tiny dishwasher churns through the old ones, steaming up the room like a sauna on an already sultry Istanbul summer night. The scene is likely familiar to anyone who’s worked in a restaurant, but with a major difference: the diners are members of the city’s homeless population, being cooked for and served by volunteers and people who once lived on the streets themselves.

After a boat ride through the canals that connect the chinampas in Mexico City’s Xochimilco district, we head over to the colorful market, where we try different pre-Columbian dishes like the tlacoyos pictured above (oval-shaped corn-meal patties filled with fava beans, cheese, refried beans, spinach, potatoes and more).

Last February, we were at a Japanese pop-up dinner at Bina 37, Tbilisi’s wine cellar in the sky, organized as a tribute to Georgian-Japanese friendship and to celebrate the champion Georgian Sumo wrestler, Tochinoshin (Levan Gorgadze), soon to be promoted to the rank of Ozeki, the second highest tier in the sport. Zura Natroshvili, the owner of Bina 37, had invited a small delegation of Japanese diplomats from the embassy and set up a big screen for a live Skype chat with Tochinoshin in Tokyo while members of the Gorgadze family were at a table in front. It was a touching event, if a bit surreal.

For some inexplicable reason, leche merengada, or meringue milk, a traditional Spanish summer drink, has fallen out of favor over the past few decades – industrial ice creams and sodas, with their multicolored flavors, bubbles and fantasy frozen shapes, have seduced local palates, making this monochrome drink pale in comparison. Well, we say that it’s time to shine the spotlight back on the démodé but delicious and nutritious leche merengada and to revive a drink that was considered opulent in numerous Spanish cities back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and documented in recipe books from as early as the 18th century.

A customer loads up a tray of traditional Mexican “Pan Dulce” at Pasteleria Ideal, a classic bakery in the heart of Mexico City’s Centro Historico.

Surely Plateia Viktorias is one of the last places you’d look if you wanted to find a typical seaside taverna. The square, once a meeting place for Patission Avenue’s haute bourgeoisie in the first half of the 20th century, was filled with refugee tents and sleeping bags just a few years ago. Today it still boasts the city’s largest concentration of refugee help centers, and women with head scarves push prams through it, while Syrian and Afghan lads lounge on its ledges playing with their cell phones. We first noticed the eatery, at the very end of a two-block pedestrianized street called Hope (Elpidos), while on our way to lunch at the Victoria Art Project, an initiative born during last summer’s Documenta 14 art festival to foster creativity in the neighborhood.