The afternoon was gray, drizzly and, even for a Good Friday, doleful. So the brightly colored sign in the restaurant window – had someone scooped up all the highlighters at the stationery store? – shone out all the more. "FANESCA," it announced in bold block letters. We hadn't given thought to fanesca since we read an account by writer Calvin Trillin, some years earlier, of his quest for this Easter-season soup. After all, we had no plans to follow Trillin to the cobbled streets of Cuenca, or to anywhere else in Ecuador, anytime soon. But we remembered the name fanesca, and we stepped inside the restaurant for a restorative bowl. The sign in the window was true to its word: “Deliciosa!”

Milky, tart, viscous and slightly foamy. At first glance and sip, there’s little to explain why pulque – a mildly alcoholic drink made by fermenting the fresh sap of certain types of maguey, the same plant used for making mezcal – has remained a trusted companion to Mexican drinkers since Aztec times. Pulque, actually, has not only survived, but, after decades of losing ground to beer and soft drinks and their high-priced marketing campaigns, this workingman’s brew is making a comeback. New pulquerías are popping up in hip Mexico City neighborhoods and attracting a younger crowd while old pulquerías, which endured some lean times, are seeing an influx of new customers, who now sit side-by-side with older generations of loyal pulque drinkers.

In downtown’s Chiado, a slightly bougie-looking restaurant profits from the crowds leaving weekend performances at the São Luiz theatre, a former 19th-century cinema. This place also takes advantage of a common and ubiquitous Portuguese ingredient – rice. Bagos (“grains of rice”) has just a few tables over two floors; the upstairs level is the more suitable for a business lunch partaken while tram 28 trundles by. The vibe is refined but simple, and that is reflected in how the humble staple on its menu is reworked in the kitchen. Chef Henrique Mouro explores the many ways in which different varieties of rice are prepared across the country, revealing a very typical component as the basis for all sorts of invention.

In the past year, we’ve seen more new noodle houses hawking spicy Chengdu and Chongqing style noodles than we can count on two hands. Very few of the Shanghai-based noodle houses do the fly restaurants of Chengdu justice. Some dish out bowls of insipid strands that barely register on the Scoville scale, while others go for that unbalanced, burn-your-face-off flare that means the chef has likely never been to Sichuan, much less studied the careful art of the region’s balanced cooking. Liu Dao Men is among the exceptions, carefully walking the tightrope of spicy yet tasty, with its menu of Chengdu noodle classics.

Some sociologists say that Spanish society and culture can’t be properly understood without spending time in its bars. You can find bars in mountain refuges, subway stations, on the beach and by the highway. In Barcelona, there are as many bars as taxis and ten times more bars than bookshops. In fact, a recent study by Coca-Cola found that in Spain there’s a bar for every 132 Spaniards. The same study points out that a third of Spaniards wouldn’t hesitate to leave their house keys at their local bar and that two-thirds of them are on a first-name basis with the employees there.

Nowhere in Mexico City does one feel the collective weight of the largest population in North America more than on Avenida Lazaro Cardenas, the traffic artery that gushes a surfeit of humans and cars up the heart of the city’s downtown. The gutters stink of rotting fruit. Dirt and littered garbage encrust the sidewalks. And, at rush hour, walking a block means suffering a gauntlet of elbows and hands pushing at you and past you. For the most part, the businesses that line this street offer little comfort. Goods lie in heaps on carpets or hang two feet deep upon the walls of stores seemingly designed to be fire hazards, cramming too many people onto too little floor space.

It’s Sunday morning at La Pignasecca market in Naples and time is in flux. Picture a Boccioni painting: movement is blurred, there is an inter-penetration of objects, speeding vehicles and sound – a frenetic moment in the Futurists’ imagination. The city rises as engines splutter, traders hustle, klaxons yelp. Santa Maria di Montesanto spews punters out into the marketplace after mass; men peel off, heading home to check on the simmering ragù; groomed teenagers peacock on mopeds as groups of women push in line to pick up their last-minute order of fresh pasta, charcuterie and squid. The church bells chime: it’s lunchtime. Anticipation is in the air.

From Rio to Venice, from Cologne to New Orleans and from Patras to towns all over Greece, Catholics and Orthodox (along with believers and nonbelievers of every description) celebrate Carnival – the three weeks preceding Lent – with parades, masquerades, pranks, Dionysian revels and Lucullan feasts focusing on roasted meats. After all, the word “carnival” is thought to have come from the Italian carne levare or “abstain from meat” – which is also the meaning of the Greek Apokreas – and heralded a time when many religions prohibited consuming flesh during the sacred fast before Easter.

Once the province of late-night slurping at street carts or standup counters, instant meals and cheap dining, ramen has undergone a renaissance over the last 15 years, making it onto haute hipster tasting menus in the West and creating punishing waits outside the “it” ramen-ya of Tokyo and Osaka. As the New Year began we decided to revisit the roots of classic ramen dining in Tokyo and paid a visit to the original Afuri ramen stand in Ebisu. Could it already have been 14 years since this place opened its doors to a hungry mob?

One of Lisbon’s best views is just steps away from Largo da Graça in Saint Andre, one of the city’s seven hills. The famous overlook offers views of most of the city and even some of the Tejo river. Most days it’s filled with a mix of tourists making good use of their selfie sticks, wanderers minding their own business and street musicians busking for small change. But locals – or, at least, locals who like to eat well – prefer to hang out a few meters back, at one of the neighborhood’s iconic restaurants. O Pitéu da Graça could also be described as having an excellent view – but only if you like looking at fish. Yes, the thing to see here is the menu’s crowded fish section.

To make excellent octopus broth, you must first fill a huge pot with water to the brim – at least 20 liters – bring it to a boil, add salt and pepper in industrial quantities and immerse four large octopuses. After 33 minutes (and not one more) of simmering, it’s ready: the octopus has reached the perfect consistency. Yet in Naples there’s a saying, “The octopus cooks in its own water” – a proverb that means that a person needs to get to the truth on his own and in his own time. Lello tells us that what this saying is referring to isn’t actually true, since clearly, an octopus needs much more water than what it comes with to actually cook.

On the left bank of Tbilisi’s Mtkvari River in the Plekhanov district is David Aghmashenebeli Avenue, a thoroughfare long associated with wallet-friendly Turkish restaurants and discount clothing boutiques. Some 15 years ago, the crumbling 19th-century buildings and huge eucalyptus trees that lined the street were crowded with people hawking everything from wooden utensils to costume jewelry, fresh produce and coffee beans labeled “Nescafé.” It was a congested, lively sidewalk bazaar of sorts that exemplified the Asiatic spirit of Tbilisi. However, a massive urban renewal project in 2011 put an end to the colorful disorder. Today, most of Aghmashenebeli is a sensible European-looking boulevard that the former President of Georgia likened to Paris, although the Turkish restaurants are still there serving up tasty Anatolian specialties.

Neapolitan cuisine encompasses such a variety of dishes, ingredients and preparations that sitting down for lunch in Naples is always a feast of smells, tastes, colors and sensations. Menus here are populated by numerous meat dishes and equally many seafood options, and the extraordinary variety of vegetables are complemented by unique dairy products, preserves and sweets steeped in history and quality. Restaurant kitchens know how to be baroque (as demonstrated by menesta maretata, a complex soup that “marries” a variety of vegetables and cuts of meat), sumptuous (as in eggplant parmigiana), or deceptively simple (as in the classic spaghetti aglio e olio, which combines the basic trio of pasta, garlic and oil to great effect).

Jambú-infused cachaça is bitter and a bit grassy, and newcomers to the drink often grimace at first taste. But seconds later something happens: the liquor's harshness gives way to a gentle tingling, then numbness, first on the tip of the tongue, then to the lips and the back of the throat. Next, the mouth salivates, pulses, and other foods and drinks take on new flavors: a cheap beer suddenly tastes like champagne. The second quaff is often taken much more eagerly than the first. Jambú, or acmella oleracea, is a flowering herb found throughout the Amazon and other warm, humid climates.

The Michelin Guide might have come to Shanghai last year, but the far more interesting trend for budget diners in the city is the fast-casual local restaurants opened by savvy young Chinese with an eye for design and a great palate. The Noodlista is one such shop – just check out its logo. The character for noodles is warped into a downward facing arrow, as if to say, “Get your noodles here!” It’s good advice, and local millennials are taking it: come lunchtime, Noodlista is always packed to the gills with young worker bees from nearby office towers. Showcasing the management’s fluency with both Eastern and Western cultures, English and Chinese coexist happily on the menu.