Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment in our street food series this week, featuring dispatches on the best streetside eating in all the cities Culinary Backstreets covers.

Before we get down to the business of discussing the best of Athens’ street food, a disclaimer: Athens is at a disadvantage when it comes to streetside eats. For one thing, a lot of venues – souvlaki joints, pizza parlors and even offal soup places – are open all night or even 24/7; they are just not serving on the street, though. Whatever the reason, there are really just two main street foods in Athens: koulouri, which is eaten early in the morning or really, really late at night, and old-fashioned hot dogs, for people who have had a bit to drink and are looking for something greasy and filling.

Koulouri
Greeks are not a nation of breakfast eaters, so koulouri, a plain, circular bread topped with sesame seeds, tends to be the morning fare of choice for most people. There is something seriously sweet and fresh about these bread rings, which are sold on most street corners in downtown Athens. The bread must be eaten fresh, so it is best consumed early in the morning or at places that have high turnover. In recent years, koulouri has evolved similarly to bagels in the United States, with new flavors that have been created in addition to the traditional plain variety. There is now koulouri with cheese (usually feta), koulouri with chocolate (not our personal favorite), koulouri with cream cheese (an interesting option but not for the summer months, as it tends to melt) and our absolute favorite, koulouri stuffed with black or green olives.

Though there are numerous koulouri vendors in Athens, three in particular stand out for us. Our preferred stand usually runs out before 2 p.m., due to its central, well-trafficked location opposite the old Church of Agii Theodori in downtown Athens, at the intersection of Dragatsaniou and Evripidou, an area home to a number of banks and public services as well as part of the Media Department of the University of Athens. What we love about this place is that the guy also sells small portions of yellow cheese or triangular white cheese (the brand of choice here is good old La vache qui rit) to go with your koulouri. Though nothing fancy, it turns out to be quite a lovely breakfast on the go.

For pure freshness, another perennial favorite of ours is the stand outside Zara on Ermou Street in Syntagma. The man who runs it always asks how you prefer your koulouri (well-baked or not so well-baked). We’re also partial to the koulouri stand located just where Stadiou meets Paparigopoulou near Klafthmonos Square. This guy is famous for two things. The first is the quality of his koulouri, which is made with extra leavening and has more of a sourdough taste than most versions. The second is the guy’s fantastic banter. When you ask for koulouri he asks, “How many?” If you reply, “One” he always says, “One equals none.”

These days, a bakery named To Koulouri tou Psyri – situated in the once hip and happening neighborhood of Psyri – supplies koulouri to most of the street stands around Athens. To Koulouri started in the ’90s as a tiny, humble, hole-in-the-wall bakery for all of the young people who partied in the area. Psyri may no longer be fun and hip, but the bakery has become one enormous shop that is open virtually 24/7 and it makes a great stop after a night out drinking.

Hot Dog Trucks
Our two favorite vromiko – a colloquial term for food trucks – are both located in downtown Athens and serve hot dogs and sandwiches until the early hours of the morning. We’re also quite fond of two other hot dog trucks, the first of which goes by the name Johnie Hot Dog. This bright red truck is parked on busy Syngrou Avenue outside Panteion University, Athens’ university for the social and political sciences. This is an almost gourmet hot dog truck, which offers four different types of sausages and a number of “exotic” extras, such as jalapeños. Our favorite is the Athenian version of a corn dog, a frankfurter sausage served with sweet corn, cheddar cheese and mayo. At night there is often mayhem here as Syngrou is home to a number of strip joints, bouzouki places and nightclubs.

The infamous Meraklis food truck is stationed at the edge of the Phaleron neighborhood, close to both the marina and the tram lines. Meraklis specializes in what one could call the down-and-dirty version of a giant charcuterie sandwich, which is a veritable protein fest – salami, mortadella, ham, smoked bacon turkey and gouda cheese (you can even opt for blue cheese for that extra spicy kick) all in the same sandwich. This is a meat-lovers’ sandwich for those who are either super-hungry, excessively drunk or, as is usually the case, both.

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Editor’s note: This feature from Barcelona is the third installment in our series this week devoted to the top street foods in each of the Culinary Backstreets cities.

In Barcelona, a great deal of eating is done in the streets. Sidewalk cafés line the plazas and paseos, often to the point that it’s difficult to tell which tables belong to which establishment. Waiters dart back and forth through traffic in order to deliver trays full of copas y tapas to hungry customers, and many a summer evening is spent munching and sipping alfresco. Nonetheless, unlike New York City with its hot dog carts, the idea of “street food” that can be bought and then eaten while on the move has never really caught on in Barcelona – or, for that matter, anywhere else in Spain. Luckily for those of us who like streetside eating, however, there are some great portable food and drink items to be had, of which we recommend our favorites here.

1: Churros
These long, skinny treats are essentially choux pastry that has been fried golden brown and then dunked in sugar. You can find them at snack kiosks, cafés and churrerías throughout the city; often they are sold with a cup of thick hot chocolate for dipping. Traditionally, churros (and porros, which are larger and don’t have ridges) were the early-morning snack of working-class men as they headed off to the job at the crack of dawn. These days, it’s more common to come across a bunch of tipsy clubbers crunching on churros at 8 a.m. as an early-morning (late-night?) snack on their way home to bed. In any case, the pastries are delicious at any hour of the day or night. Our favorite churro joint in Barcelona is Churrería Layetana. This place is old-school, the floor littered with discarded paper napkins and the counter sticky with sugar and drips of chocolate. More often than not, there’s no space to sit at the tiny counter but when that happens, we’re always happy to take a greasy paper cone of churros to go.

2: Cold treats
A number of cold, sweet indulgences make the perfect accompaniment to a stroll through Barcelona on a hot summer’s day. Granizados, drinks made with shaved ice and fruit juices (usually either lemon or orange) or coffee, are a bit like a cross between a snow cone and a slushy. Horchata is a summertime drink that originated in the region of Valencia; however, it is now beloved throughout all of Spain, and Barcelona is no exception. Made from tigernuts (chufas), water and sugar, the drink has a sweet, milky flavor that is surprisingly refreshing when served ice-cold. Another unusual cold drink is leche merengada, made with milk, sugar, cinnamon, lemon zest and egg whites that are beaten until stiff. The drink is thick, cold and frothy, a bit like a milkshake in terms of consistency and with a sweet, meringue-like flavor that comes from the beaten egg whites. Finally, while ice cream might sound ordinary, in Barcelona it comes in some unique flavors, such as turrón (a popular Spanish confection usually made with a base of honey and egg whites) and crema catalana, which tastes similar to caramel flan.

If you’re tempted by all of these options but not sure how to choose among them, head to any horchatería and you’re certain to find not only horchata but also ice cream and leche merengada. Our preferred venue is Horchatería La Valenciana. Founded in 1910, it’s the kind of place you can imagine your great-aunt taking you to and, indeed, much of the loyal clientele is made up of local women of a certain age who we suspect have had the same weekly hair appointment with the same hairdresser since 1965. As for us, we usually just order a liter of horchata to go and enjoy it on a nearby bench in the sun.

3: Bocadillos
We can’t talk about street food in Barcelona without mentioning the most basic of them all, the humble bocadillo (also known as a bocata or an entrepans). The recipe is simple and flexible: take two slices of crusty baguette and then stick something in the middle, usually ham, cheese or tortilla (potato omelet). Bocadillos can be found at just about any casual eatery, bar or café in the city, and although nearly all of them will serve for a perfectly adequate park bench meal, for us, none can compare to the bocadillos at Bó de B. You’ll recognize this tiny sandwich joint tucked away in a little street near Barceloneta by the line of people standing outside the door.

The meat (chicken, beef or salmon) is grilled fresh for each order and while this makes for a longer wait, it’s definitely worth it. Choose from the seemingly endless variety of toppings, from lentils to feta cheese to guacamole, and they’ll pile more than you ever thought possible onto one scrumptious baguette. Of the sauce options, we highly recommend choosing ALL of them – trust us, the combination works very, very well. Aside from their amazing flavor, Bó de B’s bocadillos are also amazingly affordable, priced at just €3.50 or €4 per sandwich. There are a few tables to eat at but we always take our sandwiches to enjoy over on nearby Barceloneta beach.

4: Pastries
On a nice day in Barcelona, one of the things we like best is to bask in the sun in one of Gràcia’s charming plazas; the benches lining the sides of the squares are a perfect spot for an impromptu picnic. The best place we know for stocking up is A Casa Portuguesa, a small Portuguese bakery and café located conveniently close to both Plaza de la Virreina and Plaza del Diamant. The savory pastries at A Casa are the perfect picnic food: small enough to fit in your hand and no cutlery required. Behind the glass cases are a number of choices, our favorites being the beef and mushroom empanadas, the merendas (brioche filled with ham and cheese) and, best of all, the rissoles, small croquettes filled with cochinillo (suckling pig). Of course, any proper picnic needs good desserts, and A Casa definitely doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The most popular are the pasteles de Belém, crunchy puff pastries filled with egg custard and sprinkled on top with cinnamon. But we’re most fond of the Pan de Dios (“bread of God”), pillowy brioche rolls topped with custard and shaved coconut.

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Editor’s note: This feature from Mexico City is the second installment in our street food series this week, featuring the best streetside eats in each of the cities Culinary Backstreets covers.

1: Pambazos
The pambazo is a Mexican sandwich that’s similar in style to the more familiar torta, but not nearly as ubiquitous. Most commonly found at weekly street markets like Sullivan, pambazos are made with hard, white bread rolls soaked in guajillo chili sauce that softens the crust and gives it a warm, orange-red hue. Once dried, the bread is sliced in half and then filled with a generous portion of diced potatoes, chorizo, lettuce, sour cream and sprinkled queso fresco. The bread is quite fragile, so eating the concoction can be somewhat challenging. From the first bite the pambazo starts to disintegrate, and by the end we’re usually scooping up the heavy mess with our fingers. It’s all worth it, though, as the light hint of chili in the bread and the hearty ingredients inside give the dish the same satisfying and belly-filling pleasure that comes with a good bowl of thick stew.

We’re particularly fond of the pambazos at a street stand in the traveling market that fills up parking lots on Avenida Sullivan every Saturday and that’s owned by the same people who run a wonderful barbacoa joint in Mercado Jamaica called El Profe. Being big fans of the food at El Profe, we naturally set out to find the Sullivan market stall not long after we heard about it. After crisscrossing the aisles of the market a number of times, we finally stumbled upon the place, which turns out not to share the “El Profe” name or, indeed, to have any identification at all. While customers can enjoy the same quality barbacoa and other goodies found at El Profe, the street stand focuses more on simple tacos, quesadillas and, of course, pambazos.

2: Tlacoyos
With many Mexican street foods, the shape or size of the corn masa patty used plays a larger role than the toppings in determining what a dish is called. Small, round patties are generally sopes, while extra-large, oval patties are huaraches. In the middle are the thinner, oval-shaped tlacoyos. Tlacoyos also differ in an important way from the standard flat corn masa patty in that the masa is filled with either requesón (a type of Mexican cheese similar to ricotta), fava beans or refried beans before being cooked. Traditionally, tlacoyos – from the Nahuatl word basically meaning “snack” – had no toppings beyond a bit of salsa and, not containing lard or salt, they were meant to be consumed immediately lest they became tough and inedible.

These days, toppings might include nopales (sliced cactus), sour cream, onion, grated cheese, cilantro or salsa. Some of the more loaded-down versions include a layer of refritos (refried beans) and chicken or pork, but these are rarely found outside of sit-down restaurants. Just as in pre-Hispanic times, tlacoyos are best eaten when hot and fresh right off the grill, and although they lack the complex flavors associated with other types of street foods, they’re a quick, delicious dish that won’t cost a hungry pedestrian more than 12 pesos. In a city always on the move, that can truly be a priceless commodity. Our favorite vendor uses blue corn masa and offers some of the best tlacoyos we’ve had on this side of the city. Like most tlacoyo stands, the place also sells quesadillas and gorditas with different fillings, but the tlacoyos are the most popular.

Location: Southwest corner of Francisco Pimentel and Joaquín Vázquez de León, Colonia San Rafael
Hours: Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm; closed weekends

3: Camotes
Anyone who has spent any length of time in Mexico City has likely heard the sound of the camote, or sweet potato, vendors – a piercing whistle that can be heard from blocks away, like a supersized version of a teapot heating up. Grown throughout Mexico, these reddish tubers show up in markets with regularity when in season, yet they are only rarely used in Mexican cooking, most restaurants and eateries merely using them as a garnish or flavoring for another dish. Yet despite their relative absence at tables, camotes are a popular street food. The camote vendor walks along pushing a rolling cart that contains a round metal pressure cooker that he heats with a small fire underneath. Resembling a small boiler, the pressure cooker contains the camotes and occasionally has to release a measure of hot steam – which is what produces the ear-splitting whistle that can be heard across a neighborhood. More dessert than meal, camotes are served hot with a heavy drizzling of condensed milk, cream and a side of berry marmalade.

Location: Because of their mobility, there are no set locations for these vendors. The best way to find them is to simply keep your ears open.

4: Flautas
Among our favorite finger foods are flautas, whose name translates to “flutes,” a reference to their long, narrow, tubular shape. Often confused with taquitos, which look very similar, flautas are made with large, oval-shaped corn tortillas that are specially made at almost every tortillería in Mexico City. To make flautas, the tortillas are filled with chicken, pork or potato, rolled and then deep-fried in large pans. After frying, they are dried in deep stacks while a vendor waits for orders. The crunchy, delicious snacks can be served plain, but most customers (including us) prefer to have them topped with lettuce, sour cream and crumbled cheese. We like to get our flautas fix from a vendor on Río Nilo because the meat they use, usually beef, is tender and beautifully seasoned; it’s also the kind of place where you can order just one flauta if you’re not very hungry.

Location: Río Nilo at the corner with Paseo de la Reforma, Colonia Cuauhtémoc
Hours: Roughly 9am-5pm; closed Sunday

5: Chicharrones
The first time someone sees a chicharrón, they may not know what they’re looking at. A common component in tacos, quesadillas and pozole, chicharrones are made from slabs of pork skin that have been cut thin and then fried in a large pot of lard. These pork rinds can be as large as a meter in width and just as long, and some consider it a challenge to buy as big a piece as they can manage to consume. For the average Mexico City resident, dried chicharrones are a common snack item, sold in just about every market (whether permanent or traveling) in plastic bags in large pieces, from which smaller pieces can be broken off like potato chips. Hot sauce usually finds its way into most bags, although the snack is also quite tasty when eaten plain. Chicharrones vendors are located all over the city, selling either the genuine article (fried pork rinds) or fake chicharrones, consisting of flour-based patties with toppings on them. The vendor at the entrance to Mercado Medellín offers the real deal, for full snacking pleasure.

Location: Mercado Medellín, corner of Campeche and Medellín in Colonia Roma
Hours: 10am-5pm

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Editor’s note: This week we are celebrating street food, in all its fascinating, delicious and sometimes offbeat forms. Each day, we’ll take a look at the top street foods in a different city that Culinary Backstreets covers. This feature from Shanghai is the first installment.

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
A popular morning snack that gets your arteries clogging early in the day, guōtiē (锅贴) translate literally as “pot stickers.” Like their thicker-skinned cousins, shengjianbao, they are first fried on the bottom to create a crunchy foundation for the pork filling, then steamed with water under a wooden lid to soften the dumpling skin and cook the meat. You can find vendors hawking both shengjianbao and guotie out of the same shallow wok, but for the best bite, head to the specialists: Huji Potstickers. They fire up their woks at 5:30 a.m. inside their narrow alleyway kitchen in the former French Concession, usually selling out well before lunch rush. Packed in like an edible jigsaw puzzle, nearly a hundred dumplings line the shallow wok, manned by a laconic cook who spins the pot with a pair of greasy pliers, ensuring that each guotie base gets a liberal swirl of oil and ends up a delicious golden brown. Be warned: these greasy pork-filled bites come out sizzling, so take a small nibble (or chopstick poke) and suck out all the juice before popping them whole into your mouth.

3: Congyoubing
Cōngyóubǐng, or scallion oil pancakes (葱油饼) – savory golden rounds slicked with lard, stuffed with salty pork and bright green scallions, then pan-fried in standing oil – are a common breakfast treat in Shanghai, but you haven’t tried them until you’ve sampled the ones from A Da Congyoubing. The grizzled chef, Mr. Wu, is one of the few street vendors in town who can command a following that will line up patiently for over an hour just for a bite of his edible wares. He huddles over a scalding grill for up to nine hours a day – no easy task, especially for a man who was born with a disability that left him a hunchback. But without fail, Mr. Wu single-handedly churns out the best scallion oil pancakes in the city six days a week, using a process he’s perfected over the past 30 years. The secret is crisping them up at the end, which he does by rolling back the slick griddle and placing them inside the makeshift 40-gallon barrel, where they are licked to a dark brown crisp by the kerosene-fueled flames.

4: Shaokao
Head to any well-trafficked bar strip in Shanghai and you’ll find plumes of smoke rising above the drunken revelry. Shāokǎo (烧烤) is Chinese barbecue – and the perfect late-night snack whether you’re three sheets to the wind or a teetotaling night owl. Hungry patrons pick and choose from tables laden with bamboo skewers (串儿, chuànr) threaded with a grocery store’s worth of meat and vegetables, putting their choices on a silver tray before handing it to the guys manning the grill. They nestle the skewers into the narrow charcoal grill, painting oil onto the kebabs and sprinkling their secret barbecue powder (usually a combination of ground cumin, paprika, chili powder, red chili flakes and Sichuan peppercorn) onto the grilled goods while wafting handheld fans at the coals to channel the smolder for a smoky finish.

Try the juicy lamb from Xinjiang province (羊肉, yángròu): the skewer is pushed through two chunks of meat, then an unctuous cut of fat before being capped off with two more chunks of meat – it’s the perfect flavor ratio for glistening meaty kebabs. Or opt for whole yellow croaker fish skewered from tail to tongue (黄鱼, huángyú). Cruciferous veggies like cauliflower and lotus root hold up best to the flames, but leek is another surprisingly tasty option, with its slender green shoots adding an earthy flavor to the mélange. We recommend trying the huge variety of skewers on offer on Fangbang Lu food street.

5: Jianbing
Sometimes called Chinese crepes, flapjacks or burritos, jiānbǐng (煎饼) are served up streetside on flat griddles. Originally from Shandong province, jianbing were invented almost two millennia ago – the legend says – to fuel a wok-less army, who fought out of an ambush after the simple but efficient meal. While the original version of jianbing consisted of little more than flour mixed with water and cooked on a flat surface over a blazing fire, today’s jianbing are beefed up with a scrambled egg cracked atop the millet flour pancake. Cilantro, green onions and pickled mustard tubers are sprinkled over the egg as it cooks, adding a burst of green freshness. The pancake is folded in half, then slathered in umami-laden soybean paste and spicy chili flakes. Add a deep-fried wonton wrapper – or sub in a yóutiáo (油条), or fried dough stick, for extra crunch – and then watch as the pancake is wrapped around all the ingredients and thrown into a plastic bag, making for a great handwarmer on a cold winter day, and the perfect on-the-go meal for any season. Streetside jianbing slingers can be found every few blocks in the morning, but after 11 a.m. it’s darn near impossible to find a vendor, except for one entrepreneurial woman who caters to all-day jianbing cravings outside the wet market on Wulumuqi Lu.

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The sap of the spiky maguey plant has long been used by the indigenous peoples of Mexico to prepare pulque, a milk-colored, viscous drink that has roughly the same alcohol content as beer. When they arrived in Mexico, the Spanish were introduced to pulque. Used to imbibing harder stuff, however, the conquistadors experimented with distilling a mash made out of the maguey plant, in the process inventing the beguiling spirit known as mezcal.

Previously a liquor considered the province of the poor and working classes, mezcal has in recent years become one of the trendiest and most popular alcoholic drinks in Mexico, with more than 150 different brands now on the market. (Tequila, made from blue agave – a kind of maguey – and produced within a specific region of Mexico, is the best-known member of the mezcal family.) The rise in mezcal’s popularity has led to a proliferation of mezcalerías, wine bar-like spots that specialize in pouring the drink. In Mexico City in particular, mezcalerías have popped up in nearly every neighborhood, and their numbers keep growing.

Corazón de Maguey (“heart of the maguey”), located in the bustling neighborhood of Coyoacán, offers up a two-for-one special, with an excellent selection of craft mezcals as well as superb food. The venue was opened in 2010 by Los Danzantes, a restaurant group that a decade earlier purchased a palenque, or distillery, in Santiago Matatlan, Oaxaca and began making its own brand of mezcal. Named Alipus Mezcal, or Los Nahuales in the U.S., the brand is a joint venture among four producers that are attempting to keep the tradition of authentic, local mezcal distillation alive.

Though a mezcalería, Corazón de Maguey feels more like a proper restaurant, with an open-air patio that overlooks Coyoacán’s central park and two floors of space inside. The menu is not large, but manages to offer a wide variety of standout dishes, including pescadillas (fried quesadillas stuffed with baby shark meat) and lengua (beef tongue in pipián, an earthy sauce made out of pumpkin or squash seeds) and specials such as cochinita pibil, slow-cooked pulled pork, and cochito istmeño, a patty made of beef, plantains, nuts and spices. Seafood from the coast, mole from Oaxaca and vegetables from the ecological reserves at Xochimilco are regularly brought in, allowing for ingredients and flavors not always found in Mexico City restaurants. Desserts include the delicious pay de limón, a rich lemon pie topped with meringue and lime ice cream.

Of course, as good as the food is, the focus here is still on the drinks. Mezcals come in a wide variety of flavors depending on how they are made and the type of maguey used in the distillation process. Some mezcals have a smoky, almost campfire-like taste while others can have hints of fruit or nuts. Rather than in shot glasses, drinks are served in small, shallow saucers from which sipping is recommended, to allow for an appreciation of mezcal’s nuances.

It’s important to note that while there are many different varieties of mezcals, not all are considered authentic. States that have certified agave-growing areas and production facilities include Durango, Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Guerrero, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas. Mezcal produced outside of these states is not considered authentic, although many mezcalerías try to pass this ersatz stuff off as the real deal in an attempt to break into the hot mezcal market.

The stuff on offer at Corazón de Maguey, on the other hand, is locally sourced, certified as authentic and serves as the perfect introduction to the fascinating world of mezcal.

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Located on busy Carrer de l’Escorial on the edge of Gràcia, Vermuteria Loú is a tiny, cozy venue that is exactly what we look for in a neighborhood place. The little terrace out front, with just four tables and a bar that opens to the street, encourages patrons to sit and take refreshment while observing the local street life. Inside, the scene might consist of individual drinkers slowly savoring a glass of cava at the bar while a group of men sit at the tables in the back, talking and eating one dish brought out from the kitchen after another.

Arranged next to the Yzaguirre vermouth tap and in front of a wall covered by good-quality brands of conservas (preserved food products) such as Espinaler or Olasagasti, the food cooked by owner Lourdes Branco immediately catches the eye. As soon as we entered, we noticed a tray of montaditos, or bite-sized pieces of bread with anchovies, olives and peppers; a bowl of snails in an appealing sauce; a large tortilla de patatas; and various enticing-looking croquettes. The jamón ibérico (Iberian ham) hanging on the wall seemed to be telling us, “try me!” And this was just the beginning.

Six years ago, Lourdes decided to close her butcher’s shop, keep the great jamón ibérico they used to sell, and offer it in a new tapas bar in Gràcia. Her first idea was to open a vermuteria following the example of Quimet & Quimet, with high-quality preserved food products and just a few cooked dishes to serve with the vermouth; she figured it would mainly appeal to a middle-aged crowd. But thanks to her excellent home cooking, she found her own personal style, and patrons – all kinds of people from the neighborhood in the mornings, mostly young people during the evenings and weekends – began to be seduced by her elaborate hot tapas. Lourdes was at first surprised to discover that “young people have good taste and they really value my food. It is very rewarding. They especially love my potato bomb,” she says. Indeed, her potato bomb is a real winner, both delicate in flavor and packing an explosive punch. The large ball of creamy mashed potatoes contains tasty veal cheek and foie gras inside, and is topped with a spicy sauce of tomato, nuts, black pepper and cayenne.

Lourdes’s talent for cooking comes through in the venue’s wide selection of traditional dishes that always manage to go beyond the basics, whether in their rich ingredients or their outstanding preparations. Highlights include the fried eggs with foie gras and Iberian ham shavings, an elaborate cod stew, a clay pot with a tasty sauté of cuttlefish with mushrooms fried in olive oil and onion sauce, and the esqueixada, a traditional salad of dried cod with fresh onions and red peppers. There is also carpaccio of beef and even cod, a potato omelet featuring Iberian ham, and a homemade Russian salad made with fresh vegetables.

But what we enjoy the most – and so, it would seem, do other customers – are Vermuteria Loú’s 20 or so different kinds of delicious croquetas, all lovingly prepared by hand by Lourdes, who makes three or four varieties per day and rotates the selection throughout the week. Fillings range from Iberian ham, ceps mushrooms with foie gras, or black Catalan sausage with parmesan cheese to prawns and monkfish, spinach with goat cheese and pine nuts, or cod, among others. On our visit, Lourdes offered us freshly made croquetas with ceps: creamy, oblong balls, thoroughly crunchy on the outside and perfectly soft inside, in which we could really appreciate the homemade béchamel sauce dressing the ceps, a very well-loved Catalan mushroom because of its intense flavor. We also tried the croquetas with jamón ibérico, which were extremely flavorful, filled with substantial pieces of ham and finely chopped onions.

Lourdes takes her croquette-making very seriously, preparing the fillings at her home a day in advance, then frying the pieces in the vermuteria throughout the day so that she can always serve them fresh. “My arm is broken from making croquettes,” she jokes. But her efforts are worth it. Another client points at the ham croquettes in the tray and exclaims, “Terrific – the best in Gràcia!” He might just be right.

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Dear Culinary Backstreets,
I’ve heard some horror stories about food safety scandals in China. How does an adventurous eater explore Shanghai without having any culinary misadventures?

There’s no hiding the fact that recent years have seen the highly publicized exposure of some unsavory information on China’s food safety record. While the headlines may not be any worse than those seen recently in other countries (whether unlabeled horse meat or fecal matter in ground turkey), the Chinese lately have reached appalling levels of creativity in their food scandals, from thousands of diseased pigs washing up in the Huangpu River, to rat, fox and mink meat being pawned off as lamb at hotpot restaurants. Top it all off with H7N9, a new strain of avian influenza affecting humans, and a visit to China might very well feel like a Fear Factor episode.

As curious eaters, we often find ourselves snacking on just about anything we come across in Shanghai, but there are some common-sense guidelines we make sure to follow in order to stay safe. Before you start packing a suitcase full of PowerBars for your time in China, here are a few handy tips that will help you enjoy the local food worry-free.

1) Check for reused oil
At streetside dumpling makers and noodle vendors, check the color of the oil being used. As they pour oil into the wok, make sure it is not cloudy and that there are no crispy bits floating in it – telltale signs of reused or recycled oil.

2) Choose roving street vendors carefully
With pushcart vendors, try to visit those whom you see setting up shop at the same spot on a regular basis, as their returning customers will hold them accountable. If you are new to the area or visiting, go where the most people are. You don’t want to be ordering kebabs from the lone vendor outside the train station with no customers in sight.

3) Time your meals
If you are eating in an unfamiliar place, stick to main mealtimes, so you know the size of the crowd and you can assess serving conditions and ensure quick turnover of food. Don’t eat food that has been precooked and has been sitting out for who knows how long. Half the fun of street food is watching them prepare it right in front of you, anyway!

4) Open your eyes and your nose
Lamb and mutton have a distinct smell that can’t be properly faked, Chinese counterfeiting ingenuity be damned. It pays to really be curious and choose places that will at least let you peek into their kitchen, if not take photographs. While you may have previously turned your nose up at lamb being sliced in a restaurant entryway, as is the case at our favorite Beijing-style hotpot, Lao Beijing Shuan Guo, now it’s a clear indicator that there is no possible way another four-legged creature is masquerading as mutton. Open eyes and olfactory glands go a long way.

5) Avoid processed foods
While this may seem counterintuitive to some, anyone with the food scandal app (中国求生手册, “China’s Life-Saving Handbook,” only available in Chinese) knows that it’s usually the mass-produced brands and their highly processed foods that have the most horrific recalls. With food prices rising and constant profit pressures, even seemingly trusted brands can be found resorting to shady practices. Plus, after you try a bite of that oddly bright pink sausage, you’ll be happy to stick with what’s fresh.

6) Don’t rely on food safety ratings
Take Shanghai’s smiley/frowny face food safety ratings with a grain of MSG. Fast-food giants are able to get the green smiley face due to their corporatized and transparent supply chain, which does not necessarily correlate with kitchen hygiene standards. Our favorite noodle shops, such as Wei Xiang Zhai, will probably be eternally stuck in the yellow or red frowny face ratings due to their supplies coming in fresh every morning from local markets with minimal record-keeping taking place.

7) Prices can be too good to be true
Cringe when you hear the words “cheap sushi”? So do we. Just remember that these are food items you’re putting in your body, and while bottom-barrel prices might sound like a good deal, you might end up paying for them in other ways.

8) Don’t cut poultry out of your diet
H7N9 should be more alarming from an infectious disease point of view than from a food safety perspective. Since it was first discovered in late March 2013, to this writing fewer than 150 cases have been detected and all have affected either workers involved directly in the poultry trade or their families and close contacts. Human-to-human transmission has thus far been ruled out. With live bird markets closed in Shanghai, there seems to be little reason to fear serving or eating poultry in an urban environment, and indeed, not much has changed. Roast duck shops are doing a brisk trade, and the recent May holiday saw equally long lines for Guang Ming Cun’s famed soy-sauce-braised duck (酱鸭, jiàngyā). Although live poultry is no longer sold at the Fuxing Lu Wet Market, there are still plenty of opportunities for snacking, including on twice-fried chicken strips (鸡排, jī pái).

9) It’s getting better
In response to a populace increasingly up in arms over the tide of food scandals, the Chinese government has implemented some harsh penalties (including the death penalty!) on failing food regulators and business leaders alike. At his first press conference, incoming Premier Li Keqiang made the issue a priority. The new government is taking food safety very seriously, and has plans to consolidate the 13 disparate agencies that currently oversee food safety into a single watchdog similar to the FDA in the U.S. Furthermore, the fact that so many food safety scandals have made headline news lately – instead of being covered up by the government – indicates that there is political will to improve the situation. – Kyle Long and Jamie Barys

(photos by UnTour Shanghai)

For our related advice column on food safety in Mexico City, click here.

The post Ask CB: Food Safety in China? appeared first on Culinary Backstreets.

In the world of chicken breast pudding (a traditional Turkish dessert made with thickened milk and thin strands of poached poultry), elasticity is the quality that the confection is judged upon above all else. Tucking into a real tavuk göğsü requires full concentration, a good bit of dexterity and the proper tool. A special spoon with a flat chopping nose – much like a spade – was designed just to deal with the situation and, as far as we know, this utensil is found exclusively in Turkish pudding shops. So when we got a tip about a muhallebici where “the tavuk göğsü stretches off the spoon much farther than you could fathom,” we knew we’d be dealing with the genuine article.

We set out for the Kurtuluş neighborhood and Göreme Muhallebicisi like bloodhounds on the trail. As we made our way up Ergenekon Caddesi, we suddenly found ourselves within the cozy fold of this unique district. The pudding shop was our destination but we slowed down and explored the neighborhood’s main commercial drag and its pleasantly straight residential side streets that slope down towards Dolapdere. In a city of awe-inspiring vistas, Kurtuluş does not rank very high. Lacking any visual appeal, the area doesn’t attract much interest from the outside world, which is probably the way locals here like it.

“When my grandfather came here in 1950 selling milk door-to-door, the neighborhood was all Rum [the Turkish term for local Greeks] and Armenian,” explained İlhan Yalçın, the current owner and operator of Göreme Muhallebicisi, which opened in 1965. “We still have some customers who remember my grandfather delivering milk to their house, but the younger generations didn’t stay. Of course, most of the Rum left after the events in 1955,” he quickly added, referring to a violent spasm of looting and destruction in September of that year that targeted local minorities. Mass immigration to Greece following the pogroms effectively brought an end to the Greek community in Istanbul and forever changed the urban fabric of the city.

But as much as Kurtuluş society may have changed in the last half century, we could feel the direct lineage to an older and more genteel kind of Istanbul neighborhood life. Outside a jewelry shop, old Istanbul jentilmen in ties and fedoras sat on folding chairs, chatting in the sun. Nearby, a group of intensely coiffed ladies burst out of a flower shop all at once, filling the sidewalk with their bodies and the unmistakable sound of the Turkish spoken by the Rum. In a rapidly growing and changing Istanbul, this is a neighborhood with an old and healthy soul.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that a good part of that soul was nurtured on the sublime tavuk göğsü and kazandibi (literally, “bottom of the pot,” a chicken-free milk pudding with a delicious caramelized/burnt bottom) at Göreme. When we visited on a midweek afternoon, the small, bright shop was half full, with three or four generations sitting comfortably in the same room enjoying a pudding or something else from the short menu that hadn’t changed in half a century. İlhan Bey brought over an order of kazandibi, the pudding spade beside it hinting at the stretchiness beneath the browned skin. It, like the tavuk göğsü, was just as stretchy as promised but also mildly sweet and cool on the teeth. After the shock and awe of the stretchiness wore off, we were left most impressed by the creamy notes of this pudding.

Paying the bill, we coaxed İlhan to share his secret. He told us he was just following a simple recipe left to him by his grandfather, in which the most important item is fresh milk delivered daily. That’s it: just follow the recipe, use the freshest ingredients and take no shortcuts.

In this city of shopping malls and their food courts, transcontinental metro tunnels and other crazy projects, most Istanbul entrepreneurs have little time for Grandfather’s old ways. They’re looking for projects of scale and mass production. Meanwhile, consumers yearn for the previous generation, when true esnaf, or small shopkeepers, dominated the market and played a crucial role in the life of a community.

In İlhan’s case, his grandfather shared with him the secret to making good stretchy tavuk göğsü and kazandibi. It’s not flashy, but it turns out to be the recipe for a lasting business model.

Address: Kurtuluş Caddesi 82, Kurtuluş (Şişli)
Telephone: +90 212 246 5367
Hours: 6am-1am

(photos by Ansel Mullins)

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Drinking báijiǔ (白酒) always brings us back to our first illicit taste of hard alcohol – a shock to the system, going down fiery and leaving a shudder-inducing aftertaste on the tongue. And just as many first-time drinkers are left wondering where exactly the attraction lies, the same thing is true for baijiu – at least, until the aftereffects start to kick in. In fact, even the Chinese believe that one needs to drink 300 shots over time in order to truly understand the appeal of baijiu.

Baijiu, which translates literally as “white alcohol,” is a clear spirit made predominately from sorghum, although glutinous rice, maize or other grains can also be utilized in various proportions. Baijius vary greatly in both fragrance and flavor but generally fall into four main categories – light aroma, rice aroma, sauce aroma and strong aroma – that are produced in different regions of the country. The most famous and traditional sauce-aroma baijius – such as Moutai, China’s most famous brand of the spirit – come from the province of Guizhou.

Sauce aroma and strong aroma baijius are both fermented with yeast in pits, which over time make for more complex, funky brews. It isn’t soy sauce related, though the same character for sauce in Chinese is used for both. Rice aroma baijiu uses rice and glutinous rice instead of sorghum, making it more comparable to Korean soju or Japanese shochu. During tasting its aroma definitely comes off as milder, without as much of the layered harshness (think nail polish) of strong and sauce aroma baijius. Light aroma, made in the north and the easiest to produce, also has the cheapest brands – Erguotou (二锅头) is absolutely ubiquitous around China in small bottles that cost less than a dollar. The good types of light aroma are described by the Chengdu-based writer Derek Sandhaus, who maintains the informative all-things-baijiu website 300 Shots to Greatness, as having “….a mellow somewhat piney taste.”

The allure of baijiu remains mystifying to most foreigners, perhaps in large part due to the spirit’s high alcohol content, which generally falls in the 45-55% ABV range. Indeed, during the colonial era, the harsh drink drew equally harsh criticism from new drinkers and maintained a poor reputation. As the Scottish physician Dr. John Dudgeon noted in 1895, “It exhales a powerful and peculiarly suffocating odour, and leaves a burning taste.” In a warning to American troops during WWII, a Chinese phrase book stated that baijiu is “quite good as a disinfectant when nothing else can be obtained.” Indeed, not the highest praise.

Nonetheless, baijiu is deeply ingrained in Chinese culture: The spirit is offered at nearly every social event – from wedding receptions and banquet dinners to karaoke bars and more – and Chinese drinkers throw back shots of it with abandon. To meet the demand, each year approximately four billion gallons of baijiu are distilled, a market that was worth roughly $41 billion in 2012. An estimated 30-50% of the top brands’ supply is purchased with public funds for boozy lunches and dinners at all levels of government.

Newly appointed President Xi Jinping is promoting serious CCP-wide austerity measures, however – legislation that is trickling down into the baijiu budget for local officials. But limiting spending by squelching officials’ consumption may be even harder than President Xi realizes, as baijiu has a special place in the hearts and bellies of the party. In Communist lore, it is said that Moutai pulled double duty and was used to clean soldiers’ wounds during the Long March as Communist troops evaded Nationalist forces.

So how does one build up a baijiu tolerance to match a local CCP official? Baijiu blogger Sandhaus recommends buying midrange bottles priced around RMB 200 in order to avoid the throat-melting, low-end swill and avoiding counterfeits of the better-known brands. Another option is to go for one of the local brands bought up or started by global liquor conglomerates over the last few years, such as Diageo’s Shui Jing Fang or Pernod Ricard’s Tianchengxiang.

According to Sandhaus, the reason behind baijiu’s lack of mainstream international appeal is fairly straightforward. Chinese consumers drink baijiu neat during meals and important business functions, while non-Chinese may be more used to drinking cocktails, which generally incorporate foreign liquors as just one element. Only Diageo has worked hard to promote its high-end baijiu outside of China, but “its high price almost guarantees that the only customers will be Chinese business travelers and overseas Chinese,” says Sandhaus.

Baijiu appreciation amongst non-Chinese may be only in its infancy, yet as more outsiders participate in traditional Chinese cultural events and business dealings, exposure to the drink is widening. Thanks to the current trend of focusing on local ingredients at Shanghai bars and restaurants, the liquor is starting to show up in mixed drinks, with some promising results. We recommend sampling the drink at one of our recommended venues, rather than heading out to the nearest liquor store for a bottle. Trust us: easing into your first 300 shots is worth every watered-down sip.

Yuan
The former French Concession location has a multitude of bars, but none that focus both on Chinese décor and local ingredients for a cosmopolitan audience. Opened in early 2013, Yuan fills that niche, putting off a cool retro China vibe for local and foreign customers. With iPad menus, the bar epitomizes the new-money China, but the deep red hues and Chinese symbology are done in good taste. Try the “Zombie,” the best attempt we’ve sampled of a drink incorporating (some would say disguising) baijiu into a multi-ingredient cocktail. For the brave, baijiu is also available (off-menu) by the shot for 20 RMB.

Le Sheng
Prolific Shanghai restaurateur David Laris’s modern Shanghainese restaurant, Le Sheng, is also in the former French Concession. It attracts a high-class crowd lapping up the restaurant’s delicate but delicious portions and contemporary décor. In addition to the bottles of baijiu ranging from RMB 1,998 to RMB 4,358 (for 26-year aged Gujing Gong), the mini bottles of infused baijiu are a must-try, and are only RMB 180. Availability varies by season, but the flavor combos, including peach with chrysanthemum, lemon and chamomile, or plum with hibiscus, help transform the fiery burn into a more palatable light and fruity warmth.

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As diverse Mexican food is, there are times when we just have a craving for something different, which is why we were delighted recently to discover La Petite Crepe in the Centro Histórico, a tiny eatery producing delicious crepes and tasty beverages with an international pedigree.

Owner Sandra Calso grew up in Mexico City but dreamed of seeing other parts of the world. As a young visual artist, she got her wish, and ended up spending three years split living between France and India. After these formative years, she decided to return to her native city and open up an eatery based on the cuisines she learned to love during her travels. When La Petite Crepe opened eight years ago, it was a one-of-a-kind establishment in the neighborhood and, for the most part, it still is.

Tucked inside what looks like the former hallway of a historic building, La Petite Crepe is much longer than it is wide, with a tight prep kitchen in which a team of all-female employees in bright red bonnets somehow manages to maneuver. Two counters and a handful of colorful tables make up the dining area, which is mirrored on one side to give the illusion of greater space. Adorning the walls are hand-painted floral designs in greens and yellows that give the place a unique, homey feel. “I found this elderly man who painted them. It took over a month for him to do them, but they’re really beautiful!” Sandra explained. “No one does that kind of work anymore, so I wanted to hire him just for that because I really think it’s a dying art.”

We started out with savory crepes, ordering the “Campestre,” a plate-sized crepe filled with chunks of chicken, cooked almonds, gouda cheese and chives and folded into a triangle. Topped with a light drizzling of chipotle sauce, the crepe was delicious, with a smooth, mild flavor, and managed to create a culinary bridge between Europe and Mexico. We also tried the “Curry Caminos,” a long, tubular crepe – similar to an Indian masala dosa – that was filled with chicken chunks in yellow curry and gouda cheese. Though it was spicier than the Campestre, the combination of the curry and the light, sweet flavor of the crepe worked well, and we devoured it within minutes.

But of course what we were really waiting for were the sweet crepes. Sandra told us that the jellies in the sweet crepes, in flavors such as orange, apple, blackberry and strawberry, were all made in-house. She suggested we try one of her favorites, the “Rayito de Sol,” made with orange jelly, butter and dark chocolate both inside and drizzled on top. We could see why she had recommended it: the citrus and the dark cocoa flavors tasted amazing together. Hungry for more, we also tried the “Tentación,” filled with mascarpone, cream cheese, honey, walnuts and sliced kiwi. The kiwi and cheese gave it a fresh, light flavor that was very different from the Rayito, but no less worthy of our taste buds.

The menu at La Petite Crepe is surprisingly extensive considering the small size of the kitchen, and also includes panini and wraps in addition to the dozens of varieties of crepes. To wash all of the crepe goodness down, we ordered a “Mambo Mix” smoothie, a delectable concoction made with fresh bananas, strawberries, blueberries, mangoes and raspberries, as well as an Indian treat, a red fruit lassi, made with raspberries, strawberries, brown sugar, yogurt, cinnamon and other spices. There is also a selection of flavored teas and organic coffees, ensuring that no customer will ever go thirsty at La Petite Crepe.

As we ate, we heard from Sandra about the philosophy behind her restaurant, which was inspired by seeing many disadvantaged women during her travels and wanting to make a difference in her own country, where underprivileged women often face difficulties in finding employment. For her all-female workforce, Sandra only hires women who are struggling economically, such as single mothers and students trying to make ends meet, and her concern for her employees extends even to scheduling their work hours around long commutes or family responsibilities. From the constant smiles and hard work we witnessed from her team, it was clear that Sandra’s efforts were not lost on her employees, and that there was much respect and genuine appreciation all around. Her choice of location was also deliberate. “The Centro Histórico is different from most other neighborhoods,” she explained. “In some areas there are social and economic barriers, but in the Centro Histórico there are people from all walks of life who come from all over the city. I love the mix of people here.”

We came to La Petite Crepe for something different and that’s exactly what we found, not only in the mouthwatering selection of dishes and use of high-quality ingredients, but in an owner who chooses to do business with people in mind. It’s not often that doing good tastes so good.

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