Mexico City

Spring (Food) Break: The Mango Has Landed in Mexico City

We know that spring has arrived in Mexico City when street carts crowned with whole mangoes begin to roll into town. While wandering the Centro Histórico’s bustling streets just last week, we bumped into Maria, a seasonal worker whose cart is currently laden with this favorite springtime fruit. Intrigued, we stopped to watch as she deftly skewered the mango in her hand with a stick, peeled off the skin, made decorative cuts to transform the bright orange flesh into a beautiful flower, which she then brushed with chamoy, a classic Mexican sauce, and dipped in one of the brightly colored powders stored in plastic boxes: salsa tajín, chamoy, salt, chile or everything mixed together.

Naples

The Florist Bar: Urban Paradise

There are flowers all around us. Seeds and plants are scattered here and there. Herbs and fresh fruits rest in wicker and reed baskets. Sitting amongst all this glory is Stefania Salvetti, who is telling us about Paradisiello, where she lives. Meaning “Little Paradise” in Italian, Paradisiello is where Stefania has a home with 2,000 square meters of greenery, citrus trees and even chickens. The big surprise? What sounds like a glorious village outside of Naples is actually a quarter within the city, very close to the historic center. Il Paradisiello is a small, romantic, peaceful place just a few meters from the noisy city. A site where time seems to stand still, the air somehow more rarefied.

Lisbon

Tasca Baldracca: Tasca Re-Boot

In your granddad’s Lisbon, lunch in a tasca may pass silently, the television, on mute, tuned to the mind-numbing variety show Praça da Alegria. It may take years to achieve a first name basis with the dour man behind the counter. On his menu, scribbled on a paper napkin and taped to the window, anything but cozido portuguesa on a Thursday would be tantamount to treason. Now don’t get us wrong, we have a deep appreciation for the code of that bastion of traditional Portuguese cooking that is the tasca – the knee-jerk resistance to change that has helped preserve neighborhood culinary traditions against a ferocious tide of globalized sameness – but, let’s admit it, fun is generally not on the menu.

Athens

Building Blocks: Capers, the Briny Go-To of Greek Cuisine

They grow off of walls and rocks, on rocky hills, near the sea – and even out of chinks in the sidewalk in the center of Athens. Tangy, floral and tart, capers are a wild crop like no other. The Acropolis Hill and most other ancient monuments in central Athens are covered with crawling caper plants throughout summer. On the islands, when driving those curvy, snake-like roads, look out for capers growing under the cliffs and hanging off the side of the road. (These plants often grow huge in size!) Growing untamed all over most of Greece, capers have been making their way onto local tables for centuries. The oldest recorded evidence of capers being used in food is in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, written c. 2150-1400 BCE.

Oaxaca

Levadura de Olla: Ancestral Kitchen

Standing behind the smoke veil raising from the hot clay griddle, Thalía Barrios Garcia roasts dozens of tomatoes of all shades of red with the confidence of a woman who has her future in her own hands. At the early age of 26, Thalía is the owner and head cook of Levadura de Olla, one of Oaxaca City’s most exciting new restaurants. Despite the pandemic – or maybe because of it – Levadura de Olla’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last few months, likely due to its healthy menu that is friendly to most dietary styles and, more importantly, because it is deeply rooted in the cooking styles of Thalía’s hometown: San Mateo Yucutindoo.

Marseille

Springtime Fêtes: Easter, Passover and Mimouna in Marseille

Growing up with a Midwestern Protestant mom and a Montreal-born Jewish dad, my family’s holidays wove together traditions, much like a braided challah bread. We topped our Christmas tree with the Star of David and served matzo at Easter brunch. More cultural than religious, our celebrations weren’t restricted to one faith or another. What mattered was the meaning: respecting our roots through ritual and thoughtfully gathering together around the table. Now living in multicultural Marseille, I still celebrate with the same interconnected spirit. Here, the similarities of the springtime holidays abound. For starters, they are semantic cousins, with Passover, Pâque juive, known as “Jewish Easter” in French.

Naples

CB on the Road: Along the Amalfi Coast’s Path of the Lemons

Two-and-a-half kilometers of curves and narrow alleys at 150 meters above sea level. Breathtaking views overlooking the sea. A coast dominated by the blue of the sky and dotted with arabesque domes. All around is the unmistakable perfume of the sfusato amalfitano – the Amalfi lemon.

Tokyo

The Perfect Spring Day: Food, Flowers and Fun in Tokyo

It snowed in Tokyo on March 22 – a wet, rain-like snow that puddled as soon as it touched the ground, but snow nonetheless. It was un-springlike as the week before was sunny. Early spring is sly and tricky here. One moment the kawazu-zakura have blanketed trees in pink popcorn blooms, the next moment it’s cloudy skies and planning hotpot dinners all over again. But it is glorious when temperatures aren’t whipsawing wildly from hot to freezing, when spring finally deigns to show up in the form of balmy, blue-skied days and flowers blooming everywhere. Spring days like this are beautiful for cycling in Tokyo. Fresh air, warm sun and, best of all, no freezing fingers and ears when you’re on a bike.

New Orleans

New Orleans By Mouth: Navigating the Culinary Landscape with Our Team

Ahead of our recent launch in New Orleans, we spoke to our walk leader Dianne Honore and contributors James Cullen and Pableaux Johnson about the Crescent City's rich and storied food scene and its deep connections to traditions and community. We originally shared what they had to say in our New Orleans launch newsletter (you can sign up for our newsletters on our main page to receive exclusive, behind-the-scenes content like this every week), but what they had to say was so informative and interesting that we decided to share it more widely. Dianne is a history buff, cultural preservationist, founder of the Black Storyville Baby Dolls, Queen of the Yellow Pocahontus Hunters Black Masking Indian Tribe and cooking instructor.

Istanbul

Iftar Al Fresco: Sunset in Sultanahmet

As the call to prayer drifts from mosque to mosque and lights flicker on in anticipation of dusk, everyone around us takes a sip of water and wolfs down a date, almost in unison. It is the start of Ramadan and, here in Sultanahmet Square, folks are breaking their first fast of this holy month. They have been waiting patiently for the loud cannon blast which announces the day’s end – a tradition of old that still persists here in the square, though the loud bang often frightens unsuspecting tourists – sitting on blankets spread in the square’s grassy patches and pulling tupperwared iftar meals out of plastic bags and picnic baskets.

Queens

Native Dish: Jeannie Ongkeo’s Tam Mak Hoong

CB has teamed up with the creators of “Native Dish: United Flavors of NYC,” NYC Media’s new food TV series, to offer a behind-the-scenes look at some of the New Yorkers featured in these short videos. The series, which aims to celebrate New York City immigrants from all over the world, focuses on one individual and one dish at a time as a means through which to explore the myriad cuisines represented in the city and the people who make them. While each episode features a general overview of the participant’s life story, particularly as it relates to food, we are expanding that narrative by providing the full interview transcript, albeit condensed and lightly edited. This month we are spotlighting Jeannie Ongkeo and her recipe for Tam Mak Hoong, a Lao green papaya salad drenched with savory anchovy sauce.

Lisbon

Tasca Tables: The Secret of O Bitoque

Simple and quick, the dish bitoque can be found all over Portugal. Its origins are a bit murky, but seem to be connected with the Galician immigrants from Northern Spain who moved to Lisbon during the Spanish Civil War. It consists of a small, thin steak surrounded by carbs (fries and rice), cooked vegetables or a salad of sorts, and topped with a fried egg on top. The essential ingredient is the sauce, however, and across the city of Lisbon are several variations and styles – all are generous and comforting, all are thick, and many include ingredients like bay leaf, garlic, and white wine.

Marseille

Neighborhoods to Visit 2022: Marseille’s Timeless Chave

When you board the 1 tram line in boisterous Noailles, the train snakes from a dark, underground tunnel onto the picturesque Boulevard Chave in the Le Camas district. Like the country roads of Provence, the wide street is lined with soaring plane trees. Behind them, 19th century buildings – a mix of typically Marseillais trois fenêtres (three window) and decorative Art Nouveau facades – add to the eye-pleasing promenade so beloved by locals. This scene was similar a century ago. Just a mile as the seagull flies from the Vieux-Port, Le Camas was appealing for its accessibility to the city center by tram. Landowner-turned-developer André Chave founded the neighborhood to accommodate Marseille’s growing middle class.

Athens

The Perfect Spring Day: Strolling Under the Acropolis in Athens

“Ο Μάρτης πότε γελά και πότε κλαίει” – Μarch sometimes laughs and sometimes cries. So the idiom goes here, as has this year. There are many phrases like this about March in the Greek language. Most of them (like in other cultures) focus on the weather’s instability during the month, and folk tradition believes that the weather gives us a glimpse of what will come in summer. This March was unstable, to say the least: one week it was snowing, then the next the spring sun was shining, and then again back to snowy winter! One of my favorite March traditions is donning a bracelet made with red and white thread. We call it “martis” or “martia” after the month’s name, and we make it on the last day of February and wear it on March 1.

Tbilisi

Bazari Orbeliani: The Street Sandwich Comes to Georgia

When wandering around Tbilisi, we often find ourselves at a loss when looking to grab a quick, quality snack to fill our stomachs. As much as we love our favorite Georgian cheesy bread, sometimes we want a little something more than khachapuri or pastries. Many times, these inexpensive offerings are infamous for deceiving customers with various forms of cheap filling folded into the dough in lieu of real cheese. Then, of course, there is the ubiquitous shaurma (a transliteration of the Georgian word შაურმა) – an unfortunately tasteless descendent of the Middle Eastern shawarma. This dearth of quality street food and an abundance of disappointing snacks is an ongoing issue but, as seems to be the story the world over, some entrepreneurial souls realized they could fill this gap during the Covid-19 pandemic, offering quick bites via delivery and takeaway.

Barcelona

All About the Spanish Tortilla + Recipe

Although it would seem that much of the world imagines the inhabitants of Spain subsisting largely on paella, the truth of the matter is that it is the tortilla de patatas (truita de patata in Catalan), also known as tortilla española in some Spanish regions, that really holds the place of honor in the hearts and stomachs of Spaniards. Often translated into English on menus as “potato omelet,” this hearty round cake of potatoes, eggs, olive oil and salt has nothing to do with the traditional French omelet, nor does it have anything in common with a Mexican tortilla. At its most basic, the Spanish tortilla is made by frying up a thick mass of sliced potatoes and eggs in olive oil and then slicing it into savory wedges.

Tokyo

Chipper’s at BathHaus: Soak and Sandwich

For a city of its size and density, Tokyo is disproportionately lacking in great sandwiches. Let us be clear: We’re not talking about ethereal Japanese-style sando, with their soft white bread and fillings like omelet, strawberries and cream or even ridiculously expensive wagyu fillets (although those are a perfectly valid and wonderful form of sandwich). We’re thinking of hearty sandwiches that power you through endless Zoom meetings: baguettes, toasties, wraps, banh mi. Fortunately, there’s the Chipper’s pop-up at BathHaus, where Kohsuke “Chan” Yamaoka turns out simple, well-made sandwiches every Tuesday evening.

Porto

O Astro Cervejaria Petisqueira: Cosmically-Good Bifanas

Just like at Porto’s central Campanhã train station on Rua da Estação, O Astro Cervejaria Petisqueira on the other side of the street is reliably crowded every day. Its strategic location near the station helps account for that. But what really draws the crowds in is O Astro’s reputation as a must-stop for the definitive take on the bifana, one of Porto’s signature sandwiches. Much like the train station, O Astro brings locals and visitors together from all over Portugal, in search of one of Porto’s essential bites. At the most elemental level, the bifana is a pork sandwich, and in its most traditional form it includes thin slices of braised pork shank tucked into a crusty roll called a carcaça.

Istanbul

CB on the Road: In Diyarbakır, An Improbable Mexican-Kurdish Fusion

It has been a bitter pill to swallow, but we've long accepted the fact that we'll likely never find proper Mexican food in Istanbul. What is available registers as sub-par Tex-Mex at best: hard-shell tacos, salsa that packs no punch, weak margaritas and the inevitable cactus/sombrero-dominated décor found in underwhelming Mexican-themed restaurants worldwide. A lack of understanding of the cuisine is as equally to blame as the scarcity of key Mexican staples in Turkey: corn tortillas, cotija cheese, good avocados, black beans and fresh cilantro, to name a few. Some of these ingredients can be found at specialty supermarkets or neighborhood organic bazaars if one is up for a tedious scavenger hunt, others are just unavailable full stop.

New Orleans

Fry-Day: In New Orleans, Lent Means Fish Fry Season

As each car pulled up to the fish fry at St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church, Claire White made the “roll down your window” motion with her hand in a sweeping circle, as if she were whisking a sauce. It was Ms. White’s unfortunate job to inform those in the line of cars that were circling the church like sharks that they had run out of fish. Not that the news should have come as a surprise. It was the first Friday in Lent and New Orleanians were hungry for fish. For the past two years, the traditional Friday fish fry – a staple of the Lent season, during which many Catholics abstain from eating meat on Fridays – had been sidelined by COVID-19, and this year, people were taking no chances.

Barcelona

Building Blocks: Barcelona’s Homegrown El Prat Artichokes

Prickly yet pretty, bitter but sweet, medicinal and succulent, at once firm and tender – it’s no surprise the multifaceted artichoke is the queen of Barcelona’s winter produce. It’s also one of the city’s most local crops, grown in fields that literally abut Barcelona’s international airport, just some 10 kilometers out of town. Originally from North Africa (most likely Egypt), the artichoke’s appearance in Spain is documented as early as the 1st century AD by Spanish-Roman agronomy writer Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, who mentions them in his work De re rustica.

New Orleans

Seafood Sally’s: The Neo Retro Gulf Boil

Approach Seafood Sally’s from Uptown’s Oak Street and you might mistake it for a workaday, renovated home in the district’s bucolic Riverbend neighborhood. A highly-modified cottage-style double with a drab tan paint job and muted pink accents – the house is something you’d expect from a retired high-school librarian with a weakness for Hemingway’s Key West. But the tables outside are a giveaway that it is something more than a single-family dwelling. A couple are scattered among clusters of wild calla lilies in the front yard, and more sit on the deep front porch. There are even wooden picnic tables by a shed and towering pine trees.

Mexico City

Cafe Allende: A Mexico City “Cafe Chino” Holds On

Cafe Allende’s manager, Roberto Hernandez, stands behind the counter, serving customers pan chino out of a display case grown foggy from the warmth of the fresh pastries inside. “The idea was to come and study, finish school, and work as a technical engineer. But it didn’t work out that way. This pulled me in,” he says, gesturing around the cafe. “Now it's my life.” Roberto had come to Mexico City as a boy, moving in with a sister 20 years his senior and her husband, Jesús Chew, a Chinese immigrant and the owner of Cafe Allende. Welcomed into their family as another son, Roberto worked at the cafe and spent many evenings with Jesús, learning Mexican-Chinese recipes like the varieties of pan chino, which means “Chinese bread” in Spanish.

Queens

Angel Indian Restaurant: Divine Eats

"Simple but good." This guiding principle is evident from the moment we step into Jackson Heights’ Angel Indian Restaurant, where the small dining room is almost bare of decoration. Until our food arrives at the table, the most eye-catching sights – just barely visible above the tall partition that screens the seating area from the open kitchen – are the flames that leap from a pan as chef and owner Amrit Pal Singh puts the finishing touches to our meal. It's unlikely that the flames leapt quite as high at home in Pathankot, a city in the northern Indian state of Punjab, where Amrit was born in the mid-1980s. (Even today, few home kitchens are outfitted with a high-powered commercial stovetop and ventilation system.)

Lisbon

O Trevo: Chicken Soup for the Portuguese Soul

A legendary snack bar sits on a corner of Praça Luís de Camões, a busy square dedicated to one of Portugal’s most celebrated poets (his most famous work is the epic Os Lusíadas, a fantastical interpretation of the Portuguese voyages of discovery, narrated in Homeric style). The square is a major thoroughfare in Chiado and witnesses thousands of journeys daily. Many passing through make a pit stop at O Trevo. This tiny and perpetually packed eatery has historical roots in the area; traces of the old sign, “Leitaria Trevo,” over the marble entrance reveal its beginnings as a dairy some 80 years ago.

Queens

O Lavrador: Portugal in Queens

The name O Lavrador, which literally means “the farmer,” conjures up a much more rustic experience than what you’ll have at this Portuguese outpost in Jamaica, Queens. Many of the restaurant’s most loyal patrons drive in from Long Island, have their cars parked by a valet, sip a cocktail in the white tablecloth dining room and feast on platters of delicately seasoned seafood. The word lavrador comes from the Latin root laborator – laborer – and seems more apt for the restaurant’s bar, found next door to the tiny dining room. On a Friday evening, construction workers, repairmen and the rest of the after-work crowd of Jamaica were picking from the same menu and receiving service just as welcoming, if a little more casual.

New Orleans

Buffa’s: Old Faithful

We all have that friend. A friend we should probably call more often. One who is always there for us, but we don’t see often enough. A friend who we can pick up where we left off with, no matter how much time has elapsed between conversations. A friend whose company always leaves you satisfied and wondering: Why didn’t we do this sooner? Buffa’s Bar and Restaurant is that friend. An outpost in the Marigny neighborhood on Esplanade Avenue, divided from the French Quarter by a neutral ground (which is New Orleanian for “street median”). A few blocks away, the classic dive bar Port of Call draws tourists and locals in a line that stretches around the block for their potent drinks and hearty burgers.

Oaxaca

Oscuro Brebaje: Potent Potions

As difficult as the last two years have been for food businesses, it has offered many establishments an opportunity to rethink how they do things and come back with a greater sense of purpose. Take the example of Oaxaca’s Oscuro Brebaje, a café that took a pause, only to emerge stronger and more inviting. Founded in 2015 by a young barista, Andrés González Martell, Oscuro Brebaje started off serving artsy frappés, light breakfasts and unforgettable cakes – all of which have become the signature bites of this unassuming café located in the old neighborhood of La Noria. Here, locals and visitors interact in the peaceful and picturesque streets full of old houses and colorful facades.

Tbilisi

Lui Coffee: Solidarity Borscht

It started with a resurfaced meme. A 1953 black-and-white photo of a Ukrainian-emigrant-owned restaurant in Washington, D.C., offering free borscht to celebrate Stalin’s death. Seeing it reposted now has reminded me of the culture war that simmered last year over the hearty, beetroot-heavy soup when celebrity Ukrainian chef Ievgen Klopotenko started a campaign to have UNESCO recognize it as a part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage – partly in response to a 2019 tweet published by a Russian government account that claimed “#Borsch is one of Russia's most famous & beloved #dishes & a symbol of traditional cuisine.”

Los Angeles

B'ivrit: Found in Translation

Cauliflower shawarma, lentil arayes and a killer sabich – Amit Sidi is cooking some of the best vegan food in town at B’Ivrit, her Israeli street food pop-up. Amit is not vegan. She’s not a trained chef either. But she rolls up to bars around northeast LA – and Smorgasburg every Sunday – offering an impressive lineup of dishes, both creative and classic. It almost didn’t happen at all. Amit grew up in Israel, and after she moved to LA she spent most of the next 15 years working in Hollywood, as a producer and in the costume department. She liked that world – especially costumes – but, as she puts it, “it’s mentally very draining… and there are a lot of angry people.”

Shanghai

Nanjing Soup Dumpling: The Triumph of Tangbao

Any Shanghai denizen who has lived in the city for longer than a few months worships at the altar of xiǎolóngbāo (小笼包). These steamed buns of goodness – tiny pork dumplings with a slurp of soup wrapped up in a wonton wrapper – provide delicious fodder for debates among Shanghai’s fiercest foodies.

Lisbon

Casa Nepalesa: Lisbon’s New Momo King

When Tanka Sapkota, originally from Nepal, arrived in Portugal 25 years ago, Lisbon was a very different city. There were no Nepalese restaurants and the only momo people knew of at that time was the King of Carnival (Rei Momo). Tanka says there were only four people from Nepal in the country, including him. “And now there are around 20,000,” he says, smiling. He first came to Lisbon for two weeks before deciding to move in 1996. Three years later, he opened his first restaurant. However, he didn’t start with a Nepalese restaurant, but with an Italian one.

New Orleans

Beignets & More: Strip Mall Vietnamese Oasis

Beignets & More is the kind of place you want everyone to know about – and you don’t want anyone to know about. Tucked between a defunct Cineplex and an Off-Track Betting location in a strip mall in Chalmette, a downriver suburb of New Orleans, it is a family-run gem of Vietnamese cuisine. But the name is a cloaking device of sorts: The beignets, which are made fresh daily, seem like an afterthought. Until recently, we’d never even had them. In all the years we’ve taken the short drive to this nondescript restaurant, we have always stayed on the “More” side of the menu.

Tbilisi

CB On the Road: Beyond the Adjaruli Khachapuri

These days, you can buy an Adjaruli khachapuri anywhere from a pizza chain in Bueno Aires to a grocery store in Tokyo. In Tbilisi, you can get this usually cheese- and egg-filled bread topped with meat and beans, cucumber-tomato salad or wild mushroom stew — the Adjaruli khachapuri has been having a years-long moment. Because of its ubiquity, outside of Georgia the word “khachapuri” has come to mean Adjaruli khachapuri, and the other word is forgotten. But at what cost! Adjara is the subtropical autonomous republic of western Georgia bordering Turkey and the Black Sea, and its cuisine has more to offer than solely the iconic cheese bread.

Istanbul

Azzurro Pizza Napoletana: A Slice of Naples in Istanbul

Hidden between two well-trodden avenues – the busy Halaskargazi and the glitz and glam of Vali Konağı – Kuyumcu İrfan Sokak is a back street in the high-end neighborhood of Nişantaşı. Here, cozy little lokantalar (Turkish diners), tobacco shops and chic cafés dwell in the shadow of the ancient Greek and Armenian buildings that give this part of Nişantaşı an aura of timeless elegance. Adding to that atmosphere is the miniscule pizzeria Azzurro Neopolitano, which in the two years since it opened has managed to snag the attention of pizza aficionados – and Italians – all over Istanbul. A quiet man, co-owner Ünal Yıldız comes out of the kitchen, his hands still dusted with flour.

Istanbul

CB Book Club: Caroline Eden's "Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes"

We recently spoke with travel writer Caroline Eden about her culinary travelogue, Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes, Through Darkness and Light (Hardie Grant; May 2019). Eden has written for the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Financial Times, among other publications, and has filed stories from Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan for BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent. Eden is also co-author of Samarkand: Recipes & Stories from Central Asia & the Caucasus (Kyle Books; July 2016), a Guardian book of the year in 2016 and winner of the Guild of Food Writers Award for best food and travel book in 2017.

Mexico City

Recipe: Joe Yonan's Garlicky Beans and Broccoli Rabe Over Toast

We spoke to Joe Yonan, the James Beard Award-winning food and dining editor of The Washington Post, about his cookbook, Cool Beans: The Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein. And he provided us with a recipe for his garlicky great northern beans and broccoli rabe over toast. The humble bean plays a starring role in many of the culinary cultures we cover, as evidenced by our “Bean Week” series, which included dispatches from Catalonia, Beijing, Mexico, Greece and Istanbul. So we were delighted to talk to Joe about this delicious, versatile and environmentally friendly protein, one that has gained new prominence in the current pandemic.

Queens

Neighborhoods to Visit 2022: Ridgewood, Queens

Although it's a highlight of our local culinary wanderings, when seen within a map of New York City as a whole, Ridgewood is an unremarkable-looking neighborhood. It describes a downward-pointing triangle, bounded to the north and east by the Queens communities of Maspeth, Middle Village and Glendale. To the west it shares a long, irregular border with Brooklyn, mostly with the far-more-hip neighborhood of Bushwick. In the 19th century both Bushwick and Ridgewood offered gainful employment and more attractive housing to German-Americans living in the cramped Kleindeutschland of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Bushwick was developed first, and became home not only to residential properties but also to many breweries and factories.

Barcelona

El Chato: The Basque Truck Stop

When El Chato, considered to be Barcelona’s oldest Basque restaurant, opened in 1941 in El Fort Pienc, the neighborhood was a decidedly industrial one. In fact, the restaurant’s main clientele for decades were Basque truck drivers who were dropping off or picking up goods in the area. Much has changed since the 40s. El Fort Pienc is now home to office workers as well as families, lured to the area by its proximity to the center of town. Meanwhile, Basque cuisine has gone on to become one of the world’s most celebrated, its home region filled with numerous Michelin-starred restaurants.

New Orleans

Mardi Gras 2022: Spirit (and Stomach) Soother

It was Mardi Gras morning 2012, and my Hubig’s Pie was missing. On Lundi Gras (AKA “Fat Monday,” which has evolved to include traditions of its own), I had hidden it away – apple I believe, but I can’t quite recall – to serve as my breakfast before a full day of parading, revelry and maybe a little debauchery. For those not in the know, a Hubig’s is a deep-fried hand pie, with flavors like apple, lemon, peach and chocolate. They were sold by the Simon Hubig Pie Company, founded in Fort Worth in 1922 by an immigrant from the Basque region of Spain. The company then went on to open bakeries in several cities in the southeast, including New Orleans.

Marseille

Chez Zé: Pizza on the Edge of Town

Mention “Les Baumettes” to a Marseillais and many immediately think of the prison that shares the name. Since the 1940s, this peripheral neighborhood has housed the city’s biggest penitentiary, where Marseille’s most notorious gangsters and French Connection collaborators did time. The prison is also infamous for France’s last execution by guillotine – shockingly recent, in 1977. For hikers and rock-climbers, on the other hand, Les Baumettes (whose name means “little grotto” in Occitan) is a gateway to the limestone fjords in the Calanques National Park. For Marseillais in the know, that entrance hides a unique place that is at once an eatery, escape and a voyage back in time.

Queens

Native Dish: Esneider Arevalo’s Arepas

CB has teamed up with the creators of “Native Dish: United Flavors of NYC,” NYC Media’s new food TV series, to offer a behind-the-scenes look at some of the New Yorkers featured in these short videos. The series, which aims to celebrate New York City immigrants from all over the world, focuses on one individual and one dish at a time as a means through which to explore the myriad cuisines represented in the city and the people who make them. While each episode features a general overview of the participant’s life story, particularly as it relates to food, we are expanding that narrative by providing the full interview transcript, albeit condensed and lightly edited. It’s their story, in their own words. To kick things off, we are spotlighting Esneider Arevalo, our Queens walks leader, and his family recipe for traditional golden arepas.

New Orleans

NOLA Crawfish King: Community Comforts

New Orleans is the last communal city in America. Our seasons are Mardi Gras, festivals, football, second lines and crawfish, and we share them together. And it is no accident that our Carnival season and our festival season are bridged by crawfish season: the ultimate act of communal eating. From late January to early June, give or take, folding tables covered in newspaper are laden with bright red crustaceans, corn, potatoes and smoked sausage, staples of the boil. We stand around the table, peeling and pinching the tails to extract the spicy meat, sucking the heads to taste the boil liquor, drinking ice cold beer, listening to music and telling stories.

Tokyo

Ehōmaki: On a Lucky Roll

It’s not every day you see someone’s face peeking out of the belly of a bright blue skipjack bonito (katsuo). You certainly don’t expect them to wear fish-shaped headgear while wrapping dozens of sushi rolls all morning. But this was how Mai Nagamatsu, katsuobushi evangelist and proprietor of breakfast diner Katsuo Shokudo, greeted us on February 3: her head looking like a fish at sea. It was Setsubun, the first day of spring according to the old Japanese lunar calendar, itself based on the traditional Chinese calendar that divides a year into 24 solar terms. (These days, the lunar calendar is more a reminder of cultural practices and traditional markers of seasonal changes than a practical way to keep time.)

New Orleans

Bywater Bakery: Sugar-Coated Community Center

In the spring of 2017, the Bywater Bakery opened its doors and became something of an “instant institution.” Part casual restaurant and part impromptu community center, the cafe space hummed with perpetual activity. Deadline-racked freelancers posted up with their laptops, soon to be covered in butter-rich pastry flakes. Neighborhood regulars would crowd tables for a lingering lunch visit over salads or sandwiches. On many busy mornings, New Orleans jazz luminaries (the late-Henry Butler, Tom McDermott, John Boutte, Jon Cleary) might wander in to make use of the dining room’s upright piano, filing the space with impromptu performance and the occasional singalong.

New Orleans

New Orleans: State of the Stomach 2022

Scan the back bar at the Erin Rose, and you’ll see a jumble of memorabilia that indicates a drinking hole that knows its lane. Layers of “historic” decor plaster the smoke-stained walls from rail to ceiling. A 1970s-vintage Evel Knievel poster hangs above a bobblehead figurine of legendary local clarinetist Pete Fountain. Behind a set of glass shelves holding the barkeep’s basics – thick-sided rocks glasses for double shots or the occasional Sazerac, a staggered lineup of beer bottles that act as a three-dimensional menu – every square inch of vertical surface is covered with in-joke bric-a-brac of various eras. A huge backlit sign from the 50s that reads “PRESCRIPTIONS.” A laser-printed WuTang logo. Hundreds of patches from law enforcement departments from across the globe.

New Orleans

New Orleans: State of the Stomach

Scan the back bar at the Erin Rose, and you’ll see a jumble of memorabilia that indicates a drinking hole that knows its lane. Layers of “historic” decor plaster the smoke-stained walls from rail to ceiling. A 1970s-vintage Evel Knievel poster hangs above a bobblehead figurine of legendary local clarinetist Pete Fountain. Behind a set of glass shelves holding the barkeep’s basics – thick-sided rocks glasses for double shots or the occasional Sazerac, a staggered lineup of beer bottles that act as a three-dimensional menu – every square inch of vertical surface is covered with in-joke bric-a-brac of various eras. A huge backlit sign from the 50s that reads “PRESCRIPTIONS.” A laser-printed WuTang logo. Hundreds of patches from law enforcement departments from across the globe.

Mexico City

Huaraches Rossy: Big Stuff

Visiting the Jamaica plant and flower market is one of our favorite activities in Mexico City; we love getting lost in its green alleys and never fail to emerge with at least one new plant and a beautiful bouquet of flowers. And of course, we’re always on the lookout for new places to eat. Our favorite barbacoa joint is in this market, but when we want a different experience we head to the huarache alley, where several stalls offer this tasty Mexican specialty.