Avenida da Liberdade is commonly acknowledged to be the most luxurious and expensive artery in Lisbon. It’s the obvious place to go to buy a famous designer’s dress or fancy jewelry. It might be surprising to learn, then, that it’s also the place to go for good pernil assado (roasted pork shank) or cabidela (chicken blood rice). The reason is simple: the area is filled with great tascas, which draw a wide range of local office workers, including lawyers, business consultants, public servants and unpaid interns. Among these tascas, O Cartaxinho is one of the best, if not the best. Unsurprisingly, it’s also one of the most popular – it’s not unusual to see groups waiting outside for a table during lunchtime.

We’ve seen the doleful little building a hundred times, every time we cross Tbilisi’s Dry Bridge. With the seductive words chacha, grappa and vino hand-painted on the wall enticing us like a red-light district lures lonely sailors, we would move on, thinking, “one of these days.” Then one sweltering summer night our band got a gig at the biker bar next door to the sad little building. We had a half-hour to kill until show time, and we thought, surely, one shot won’t hurt. But instead of walking into a moonshine dispensary we found a little tourist shop packed with wine, ceramic vessels and assorted knick-knacks. The real discovery, however, were three refrigerators stocked with balls of craft cheeses.

All around Messinia lie endless fields of olive trees, their silvery leaves shining everywhere you look. This region in the southwestern part of the Peloponnese has been known for its fertile land since ancient times. Some of the best olive oil in the world comes from here. The capital, largest city and central port of Messinia is Kalamata, known around the globe, of course, for its famous namesake olives. It lies at the top of the Messinian Gulf, with a view of the water’s blue expanse. Above it towers the imposing Mount Taygetos. Together, the mountains, sea and land have created a gastronomic paradise.

Each morning, 82-year-old Giorgos Chatziparaschos’s bicycle pedals clank and echo down the cobblestone streets of the Venetian-era port city Rethymnon, on the island of Crete. For almost 60 years, he’s parked his bike in front of a 17th-century building where a simple hand-painted sign reveals his family name and his family business. By eight o’clock he has donned his apron and hat, and with the steely determination that underlies his work ethic, he begins to roll out the dough. Chatziparaschos is one of the only pastry makers in Greece specializing in handmade kataifi. The traditional phyllo pastry looks like shredded wheat, with strands as thin as vermicelli.

You sit down for a meal with family or friends, and no one can decide what to order. Well, some can, some can’t, and it goes on for ages. The waiter stiffens when you ask one more time for her to come back. But go to the basement restaurant of Shavi Lomi in Old Tbilisi, and you have the answer for dithering relatives and pals: the gobi, or “Friends’ Bowl,” filled with a colorful selection of classic Georgian dishes. The word shares the same root as the Georgian word for “friend” – megobari – and so, of course, a gobi bowl is for sharing. It’s a big wooden bowl, filled with a mix of different dishes and as many spoons as you need.

Halfway between a French bistro, a Nordic café and a Spanish casa de comidas (a traditional small family-run eatery where the menu changes according to season and the market), Santa Gula is the perfect place to sin – gastronomically speaking – in Gràcia. Hidden in a small and peaceful square, Santa Gula, or Saint Gluttony, is truly heaven amid Avinguda Diagonal’s commercial buzz. This cozy restaurant with its wonderful outdoor terrace (set up in spring and summer) is without a doubt one of the neighborhood’s best well-kept secrets, attracting a crowd of faithful customers, from locals and area office workers to foodies from across the city.

Lisbon’s tiny Taberna da Rua das Flores is almost always crowded, with barely enough room for staff to explain (and often translate) to hungry clients the dishes chalked up on its only blackboard menu. With around 10 marble-topped tables in a narrow, vintage-style eatery that takes no reservations, its small scale and increasing popularity makes for a challenging place to serve food – and yet, the staff are always smiling. The restaurant’s original, contemporary take on the forgotten tavern fare of the city, as well as its patient service and shared love of local ingredients, make it well worth the waiting time.

It’s a mid-week spring day in Tbilisi and we have joined Dali Berdzenishvili and her family for a special picnic lunch. There’s a zesty looking spread covering most of a yellow and blue tablecloth: heaps of khachapuri (cheese bread), blinchiki (meat rolls), sliced meats and sulguni cheese, salads, a trademark Georgian dish of pickled greens known as jonjoli, a bowl of strawberries and a few slices of leftover Easter paska cake. For drinks, there are several bottles of semi-sweet red and a bottle of homemade grape juice. Dali says her late husband, Zviad, loved a picnic like this. And it is Zviad who brings them all here – because they are eating next to his grave.

To call the drinking of yerba mate a fixation in parts of South America would be an understatement. Yerba mate (MAH-tey) in Argentina and Uruguay is consumed regularly by an estimated 98 percent of the population, and, like tea in other countries, has social and cultural significance and rituals associated with friendship, business relationships, leisure, hospitality, etiquette and national identity. As a social ritual, mate brewing requires a bit more than just yerba, the vessel (calabaza), straw (bombilla) and hot water (80 degrees C – 175 degrees F – is the usual temperature, but around 50 degrees C or 120 degrees F is preferred); if you are in a group setting, you’ll also need to know a bit of its language of respect and solidarity.

They weren’t easy to spot at first: tiny green shoots with reddish roots, scarcely an inch high, poking out of the mud along the banks of a brackish stream near the Aegean town of Alaçatı. From these unpromising beginnings come a dish known to nearly every patron of a Turkish meyhane: nutrient-rich deniz börülcesi (samphire), typically served boiled and dressed with olive oil, lemon, and garlic. The simple word ot, which translates to “herb” or “weed,” doesn’t do justice to the important – and delicious – role these wild greens play in the cuisine of Turkey’s Aegean region. Though most commonly served as zeytinyağlılar, dishes “with olive oil” like the classic deniz börülcesi salad, their versatility was on full display at the recent Alaçatı Ot Festivali, an annual celebration of all things leafy and green.

So you’ve eaten your way around Shanghai’s delicious noodle shops and restaurants but want to bring a taste of China back home? Or maybe you’re searching for a weird food gift (pickled chicken feet anyone?) for a hard-to-please friend. You’re in luck, as specialty food shops dot the city and are quite popular with locals, offering a huge variety of well-packaged items.

Wave after wave of migration from Anatolia has bestowed upon Istanbul a population of 15 million at bare minimum, with countless pockets of the city representing villages and districts from every last corner of the country. In the neighborhood of Feriköy, those originally hailing from the eastern province of Erzincan have managed to consolidate their presence on an entire street. Lined with a number of restaurants and shops selling fresh goods typical of the province, and a row of village associations established for the purpose of maintaining cultural ties between those living in Istanbul and their relatives back home, Feriköy's Gediz Sokak is all about Erzincan, a land of sheep and mountains famed for its dairy products.

Arataca boasts a title so extraordinary that, were it more widely known, we would expect the modest Copacabana snack bar to be covered with colorful Nossa Senhora do Bonfim blessing ribbons so that generations of pilgrims could light white, tapered candles and lay baskets of offerings at its sidewalk entrance. That designation is: First Açaí – the Amazonian superberry – served in Rio de Janeiro. Local lore says that the slushy, purple drink was first served here 59 years ago, and it was a hit. Nowadays, you’ll see cariocas all over the city with the drink’s trademark ink-stained teeth. Arataca was opened by two immigrants from the northeastern state of Pernambuco. One was in the military and, in his travels through Brazil, he developed a taste for the highly unique cuisine of the country’s north, particularly that of Pará state, considered the gateway to the Amazon region. Pará is also the cradle of the Amazonian berry açaí, which is sold in barrels at riverside marketplaces in the commercial and political capital of the state, Belém.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment in our series of illustrated dispatches covering local spots in and around Georgia’s capital. Contributor Andrew North is an artist and journalist based in Tbilisi who spent many years before that reporting from the Middle East and Asia. So it’s thanks to Genghis Khan that we find ourselves in a Tbilisi restaurant kitchen eight centuries later, watching chef Lena Ezieshvili make khinkali, Georgia’s famous meat dumplings. That’s one thought that skitters through my head as I try to follow her wink-quick hands folding circles of dough around dollops of meat and herbs before neatly pinching them off at the top into that distinctive khinkali shape.

My wife, Kurdish in-laws and I are enjoying an early meal at Gabo, one of Diyarbakır’s most successful new restaurants. It gets dark early this time of year in the city, and the dry air carries the ayaz chill, which engenders a need for a hearty soup and hot tea. The owner, Cahit Şahin, shares stories of the place’s beginnings. “When we applied for a restaurant license, City Hall just laughed,” he tells us. “‘For a vegetarian place?’ they said, ‘In Diyarbakır? Go ahead! It doesn’t matter if we grant you one or not. You’ll go under in three months!’” But that was nine months ago. Gabo, which bills itself as the predominantly Kurdish southeast region’s only vegetarian restaurant, is thriving. In fact, they are doing so well that Şahin and his fellow owners are planning to open franchises in the western Turkish city of Tekirdağ and in Istanbul. As Şahin talks, he gestures at the bustling café around him. “We used to work as tutors for students preparing for their standardized exams. We were just sick of the rat race, of always being tired and worn out. I envisioned a cozy alternative joint where I could drink tea, listen to jazz and play backgammon with my friends.” He laughs. “We haven’t touched a backgammon board since we opened the doors!”