We said it last year, and we’ll say it again: we’re often not impressed with traditional holiday gift guides. They’re either littered with undisclosed affiliate links or seemingly endless lists (much like our holiday to-dos) that make us want to turn off the computer and hibernate until the end of January. With that in mind, we’ve brought back our gift guide, a highly-selective (and relatively short) list of products, some serious, others frivolous, that our correspondents and guides eat and use, made by people they know.

In Beijing, it’s not uncommon for a waiter to ask “有忌口吗?” before you start ordering. It translates as “Anything you don’t eat?” With a large Hui Muslim minority population, Beijing is more accustomed to diners with dietary restrictions than southern cities like Shanghai. In the Paris of the Orient, it’s not uncommon to explain that a diner is vegetarian and still have their tofu or vegetable dishes come out of the kitchen sprinkled with minced pork. The common retort when pointing out the meat is “It’s just a little bit – for flavor!” But Spring Trees takes that northern dietary accommodation a step further, offering meat-free renditions of classic Sichuan dishes alongside the pork-laden options. It’s perhaps the best option in Beijing for diners looking for a pork-free (or fully veg) restaurant.

Every kitchen lives by its ebb and flow. There’s the gentle simmer of rote prep and small talk; the mad tango of searing sautés and the electric energy on the assembly line. Stray bits of sumac and fennel. Shouting matches and saucy spoons. But at Newcomer Kitchen in Toronto – a weekly pop-up that invites Syrian refugee women to gather, cook traditional meals and split the day’s proceeds – something else is at play. It’s here that the women build a community of their own, buoyed by the relaxed chatter and culinary craftsmanship so resonant of home.

As the calendar year turns over, we’ve grown accustomed to the barrage of lists telling us where to travel during the next 12 months. Oftentimes these places are a country or even a whole region – you could spend an entire year exploring just one of the locations listed and still barely make a dent. We like to travel on a smaller scale. Forget countries and cities, for us the neighborhood is the ideal unit of exploration. Celebrating neighborhood life and businesses is, of course, essential to what we do as Culinary Backstreets. Since our founding in 2012, we’ve been dedicated to publishing the stories of unsung local culinary heroes and visiting them on our food walks, particularly in neighborhoods that are off the beaten path.

Truth be told, we’re often not impressed with traditional holiday gift guides. They’re either littered with undisclosed affiliate links or seemingly endless lists (much like our holiday to-dos) that make us want to turn off the computer and hibernate until the end of January. So, what makes our gift guide different? It’s a highly-selective (and relatively short) list of products that our correspondents and guides eat and use. Many of them are featured in stories that we’ve published, and we worked our hardest to connect you directly with producers – while we weren’t always successful, we did manage to avoid Amazon entirely (and no affiliate links in sight).

Chao ma doufu (stir-fried tofu) is among the numerous Chinese breakfast favorites we'll sample on our morning breakfast tour in old Beijing. 

The ascendance of Spanish gastronomy has largely had a Basque signature, which, together with the Catalan scene, is seen as the vanguard in Spanish haute cuisine. But while Nouvelle Basque has gotten all the spotlight lately, the food culture of this northern region has always been outstanding, thanks to its abundant rains and a territory that encompasses the Cantabrian Sea and Ebro River. Basque taverns are largely known for their pintxos, a kind of tapas that are more sophisticated in taste as well as in design. At certain times of day these small plates fly nonstop out of the kitchen, usually chosen at the chef’s discretion.

What the taco stand is to Mexico City or the wok-wielding hawker to Bangkok, the Würstelstand is to Vienna. At any time of day or night, people line up to snack on a quick sausage, with a pickle, mustard and a can of beer. There is an astonishing variety of sausages to choose from – from well-known Vienna sausage to Waldvierter, a twice-smoked sausage made from pig’s head, from spicy Burenwurst to Käsekrainer. The last one is for many locals the king of the Wurst: a coarse sausage filled with pockets of hot, melted cheese that ideally form a crispy crust on the outside once the sausage has been grilled.

Sitting at a table in Lucio, a long-established tavern in the heart of Madrid’s most famous tapas street, is a singular experience that has a slightly surreal, Buñuel-esque touch. Queues formed of Madrid’s born-and-bred elite snake past the elegant wooden bar, the coiffed connoisseurs greeted with affection by the landlord himself as they wait to eat his restaurant’s specialty dish. Lucio’s signature white suit and the hushed, apparent dignity of the place are quite a contrast to the actual holy grail itself: a plate of fried eggs and fries. The eponymous owner keeps repeating in a whisper that this is the most famous restaurant in all of Spain; perhaps it truly is.

(Editor's Note: In honor of the immigrants and refugees who have made their new home a better place for us all, this week we are running some of our favorite archived stories about those who have left a culinary mark on their adopted land.) In Berlin, there is no shortage of meatless options, and vegetarians can even rejoice in a seitan-based döner kebab that is given the proper spit roast. What did surprise us is that the ubiquity of vegetarian diets in the city has greatly impacted one version of a meat-centric Turkish street food classic.

Berlin Wall No2 is a rickety wood and plastic-sheeting structure on the pavement right on the Greek-Cypriot side of the “green line,” as the border that divides the Cypriot capital is known. It’s overlooked by guards and is a five-minute stroll from the more stylish eateries in the center of Nicosia’s Old Town. But this little hole-in-the wall serves the best sheftalia we’ve eaten in the city. You could argue about whether these wonderful little nuggets are a form of sausage – what the French would call crepinettes. Two cuts of pork – backfat and loin – are minced, mixed with onions, herbs and seasonings, then encased in caul fat – the membrane that surrounds a pig’s stomach – and grilled over charcoal.

Galician restaurants have had a strong presence in Madrid since the 1950s, when the northwestern region’s economic crisis triggered a solid exodus of people towards industrial Spanish cities. This migratory wave, alongside the fact that Galician gastronomy was (and still is) considered one of the best in the country, meant a boom of new restaurants in the capital. It was in the 1970s when brothers Francisco and Marcial Javier moved to Madrid from Lugo, an interior city of Galicia known for its Roman walls, rainy weather and rich food.

When a menu is written only in Chinese characters, it presents a language barrier for foreigners. When a restaurant offers a Mandarin-only menu and requires diners to handwrite their order in characters, that molehill becomes an actual mountain. But Zhang Mama doesn’t care – diners have been queuing up for upwards of an hour outside the dingy hutong restaurant for a bite of its Sichuan cuisine since it opened in 2009. Why? It’s equal parts delicious and cheap. Demand got so high for this hole-in-the-wall shop that they opened two more shops, one just down the street from the Dongcheng district original and another in Chaoyang district. But it’s still not easy to get a seat during peak mealtimes.

Jianbing are Beijing's ubiquitous breakfast crepes, perhaps the city's most popular morning snack. It's available with a dazzling variety of toppings, and prominently featured in our Beijing breakfast walk.

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. It is ubiquitous in China at official events, like weddings, business deals, and boozy government lunches, but under President’s Xi Jinping’s ongoing crackdown on government largesse, sales are down about 13 percent from a peak in 2012. As baijiu growth falters, many brands are looking abroad to push sales – not only to introduce it to foreigners, but also to keep it relevant to the younger, wealthier generation of Chinese who are living as expatriates.