Celebrating its 300th birthday this year, the Quinta do Vallado estate, located near Peso da Régua in the heart of the Douro valley, is integral to the history of the region. The current owners are the sixth-generation descendants of D. Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, a legendary visionary and businesswoman who, in the 19th century, changed Douro wines. Francisco Ferreira, the 44-year-old scion of the family, is now leading the wine making of this old estate, which for years was dedicated exclusively to port and is now producing some great red and white wines.

If you walk the length of Roosevelt Avenue from 69th Street to 111th Street in the early morning, you may encounter up to two dozen tamale ladies, usually at the major intersections that correspond to the 7 train’s stops. Few have licensed carts; most vend from grocery carts. Many of these women are up at 3 a.m. cooking and packing their steaming goods and are on the street by 4 or 5 a.m. Licensed or not, their business is brisk, efficient and professional. The ladies feed their own and charge prices that day laborers can pay. It is 5 a.m. on the corner of 69th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside, Queens. I am here to meet Christina Fox and her favorite tamale ladies.

On Serifos island, local word-of-mouth advice on where to eat real Greek home cooked food – at excellent prices – will take you to the end of a beach road, a dirt path bordering the turquoise sea. Around a slight bend on a corner clearing, a dozen or so mismatched, aged wooden tables and chairs strewn in front of whitewashed house are simply lit by a string of light bulbs hanging between two thick tamarisk trees. Here, 83-year-old Kyria (Mrs.) Margarita has faithfully taken orders, cooked every dish and welcomed her summer guests for more than three decades. Hers is the prototypical traditional Greek island taverna.

Roughly a year ago, José, the owner of Das Flores, was heartbroken: he had just received an eviction notice demanding that he close the restaurant. And it’s not like he hadn’t been paying his rent – he had, but there were plans to transform the whole building into a luxury hotel. That has become a common occurrence in Lisbon’s recent history: closing an old family-owned business to make way for something more profitable to its landlords. Only this time the story had a different ending. With the help of a lawyer, José managed to keep his doors open. At least for the time being. He’s now a happier host, running the place behind the counter with his business-as-usual mindset.

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.

Even the pigeons of Copacabana know that Galeto Sat's – the old, ugly botequim located on the first block of Barata Ribeiro Street – has become one of Rio’s most important bohemian institutions since it was acquired by the Rabello family 10 years ago. The new owners changed the spirit of the bar, making it a hit – especially for those who love to eat and drink well, all night long. Even Anthony Bourdain turned the spotlight on this place for his TV show, “No Reservations.” The one problem that remained, however, was its size. Because the bar is very small – just 30 seats – it’s always crowded.

Even in well-trod Mexico, little pockets of paradise can still be found. Located to the north of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, where the Gulf of Mexico meets the Caribbean, little Isla Holbox is one of the most beautiful places we have visited in the country. It’s easy to lose track of time just meandering down dirt roads past brightly painted palapas (buildings with palm-leaf roofs), sunning yourself on a tranquil beach, watching spectacular sunsets and eating delicious seafood. Getting to the island isn’t easy, however. There are buses from Mérida, Cancún and Playa del Carmen to Chiquilá, and the trip can take up to four hours on roads that are not always the smoothest. From there, ferries cross over the Yalahau lagoon to the final destination.

Any journey on the Shinkansen – Japan’s bullet train – is the perfect opportunity to enjoy an ekiben, the iconic bento filled with an assortment of delicacies tucked into a container and eaten in bite-size pieces. The term comes from the Japanese words for train (eki) combined with ben for bento (or “lunchbox”). These little jewel boxes are sold at concessions in train stations across the country and occasionally via pushcarts on trains. Different regions of Japan offer up varieties of local ingredients or specialties, making the ekiben a cornucopia of Japanese cuisine. Before airplanes became inexpensive and frequent in Japan, rail travel was the only mass transportation for long distances.

There is a Portuguese word famous for allegedly being untranslatable in any language. That word is saudade, an emotional state caused by missing someone or desiring something that does not exist anymore. For years, children have been told that only lusophones are able to feel saudade, since others cannot express that feeling. It’s a compelling story, but, unfortunately, it’s also far from true: saudade means virtually the same thing as añorar or echar de menos in Spanish, nostalgic longing in English, or sehnsucht in German. If one is looking for a truly untranslatable word in Portuguese, he or she should look no further than right around the corner, to that cheap no-frills restaurant serving large portions of traditional food piled onto large aluminum platters.

This is a piece that celebrates the odd, the misshapen and the sometimes grotesque – in other words, what to look for to find a really tasty tomato. Just to be clear, we are talking about tomatoes from Sakartvelo here. Sakartvelo? You might know it better as Georgia, but Sakartvelo – literally, the dwelling place of the Kartvelian, or Georgian, people – is what natives call their country. And some Georgians say Sakartvelo should be the official name for everyone else too, to avoid confusion with a certain U.S. state that wasn’t even a colonialist’s dream when Georgia the country was already 1,200 years old, but which now irritatingly hogs all the Google limelight.

Behind a discreet entrance on one of Lisbon’s principal avenues, a sophisticated environment with a minimal interior houses a loyal Luanda-Lisboa jetset crowd who is here for the great food – and great music. Poemas do Semba, its walls decorated with black-and-white photographs, is an unlikely find in this neighborhood. Santos is the former stomping ground of the Portuguese nobility; today some of their former palaces have been turned into embassies or luxury hotels. Students and a design-y crowd have taken over as well, thanks to the nearby college. This exclusive African restaurant was opened in 2014 by the famous Angolan singer Paulo Flores, a semba exemplar who has numerous albums to his name.

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.

We got hungry after doing some serious exploration in the Asian-side neighborhood of Mustafa Kemal, a hotbed for left-wing groups and a melange of informally built homes in the shadow of the rapidly developing district of Ataşehir. Passing by a string of uninspiring döner and pide joints, we inevitably opted to do what works best: follow our noses. The ragtag quarter is better known as 1 Mayıs, taking its moniker from a bloody, chaotic scuffle in Taksim Square on May Day, 1977, that left over 30 dead. Home to a working-class Alevi population of Central and Eastern Anatolian migrants who came to Istanbul in the 70s, the neighborhood is tagged on every other wall with the acronyms of leftist groups (legal and illegal alike) alongside posters of martyred revolutionaries

Our eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim light upon walking into Ladrio. The room is like a vault, its brick walls and floor emitting a scent familiar to anyone who’s ever been in a cave or stone cellar. This mustiness is comforting, however, and the cool air a welcome reprieve from the furnace of the Tokyo summer outside. Soon we can make out several low tables extending back into the narrow space. People sit alone or in pairs sipping coffee or puffing cigarettes. Some converse in hushed tones as Edith Piaf is piped quietly from an unseen stereo. A few heads swivel in our direction but gazes never linger here.

September heralds the start of Portugal’s wine season, and while harvests from Alentejo and the north usually get all the attention, many forget that Lisbon itself also offers much to try from its own soil. This old wine-producing area was previously known as Estremadura, which extends from the capital to about 100 km to the north. In 2010, the rebranded Lisbon wine region (Região dos Vinhos de Lisboa) was born. Production has since expanded on average around 25 percent annually, with 70 percent of sales now allocated for export.