Order a plate of vindaloo in one of the many Goan restaurants around Lisbon and your local friend at the table may point out that the origin of this dish is, in fact, Portuguese. Even the name can be decoded back to the Portuguese vinho d’alhos (wine and garlic), he’ll say. But let’s be honest here, amigo, vinho d’alhos has about as much to do with Goan vindaloo as the croissant does with the cronut. Vinho d’alhos may have sailed off to Goa along with Vasco da Gama in the 15th century, but when it returned to Lisbon with Goan migrants in the 1960s and 70s, something had changed. It had gone Goan.

If Mexico had to choose a national flavor, the chile pepper would without a doubt be the winner. The only issue might be which chile would take the top spot in such an honor. The country is home to more than 200 variations of chiles, stemming from some 64 distinct varieties. Almost no meal is eaten without some form of chile-based salsa. And while the variety of chile ranges from eye-twitchingly spicy to robust, sweet and smoky, seeking out a dish in Mexican cuisine that doesn’t incorporate at least one type of chile would be a difficult – if not futile – venture. When FIFA held the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, the official mascot was Pique, an anthropomorphized green chile pepper wearing a sombrero. The meaning was not lost on the world, and least of all on Mexico itself. Let it be known: Mexico is home of the chile.

We are in the Vasto district, a difficult to navigate maze of narrow streets that criss and cross, a market area squashed between Naples’ central station and Centro Direzionale, the business district. The district’s Via Nazionale, a street adjacent to the station, is a shrine to local gastronomic treasures, and we consider it a true paradise for lovers of good food. It’s a jewelry box of flavors, ideas, and unique and original products. The daily street market on Via Ferrara, another local artery, is one of the city’s most colorful and fascinating – mentioned several times in renowned author Elena Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Rriend.” It was here, in 2016, that Dario Troise brought to life a project 15 years, if not centuries, in the making: a panini bar that serves only cuzzetiello (which roughly translates to bread bowl sandwiches).

Over the course of June, Lisbon’s neighborhoods are perfumed with the smoke of barbecued sardines. It’s one of the most prominent features of the traditional arraiais, the festivals that pop in each neighborhood at this time of year, offering grilled fish and pork, beer and sangria, and music. While all this eating, drinking and making merry is certainly a fun time, it’s by no means the main event. For many Lisboetas the highlight of the June festivals, which are held in honor of Santo António, Lisbon’s favorite local saint, are the marchas (parades) on the night of June 12, the eve of Saint Anthony’s Day. It’s the moment they have been waiting and preparing for all year.

While meandering through a market in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş, we spotted unripe figs that are perfect for making delicious fig jam. The thought of the sweet yet refreshing taste together with kaymak was making us drool, so we bought some and headed on home to make jam.

Based on NYC Media’s new food TV series, “Native Dish: United Flavors of NYC,” Culinary Backstreets brings you 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. This month, we are spotlighting Upi Yuliastuti, an Indonesian immigrant from the Pandang region of Sumatra, who has been the chef at Upi Jaya restaurant for 15 years. Through her daughter Tika, we hear about Upi's dedication to her kitchen, her desire to share Indonesian food with the city and what sets her beef rendang apart from all the other eateries in town.

This Ecuadorian bakery is just one of the many stops on the multinational melange that is our Queens walk, where the flavors of the world can be sampled in one borough. 

In search of new adventures, we recently decided to venture to Beykoz, on the northern end of Istanbul’s Anatolian side, near where the Bosphorus meets the Black Sea. Getting there required an hour-long ferry ride – basically a mini Bosphorus cruise – from Üsküdar, and upon arrival we immediately felt catapulted out of the chaos into a green, peaceful haven. After a walk in the lush local park, Beykoz Korusu, we headed to the center, where an old lokanta opens onto a main square. “Kök Kardeşler Lokantası – Kuruluş 1935” (“Brothers Kök – since 1935”) read the restaurant’s sign. The simple but meaningful words were written in bright yellow decal on the window. Kök Kardeşler’s unpretentious apperance and the fact that it was a family-run business compelled us to stop inside and grab a quick lunch on what was an unusually cold spring day. “Hoş geldiniz,” Hamit, one of four Kök (the name means “roots” in Turkish) siblings who have been managing this little diner, said as we entered, showing an old-fashioned politeness that we now rarely see when eating at restaurants in more popular parts of town.

Mall dining in Asia is nothing like its American counterpart, thanks mostly to the humid climates of Singapore and Hong Kong. These two islands have tunnels and bridges connecting malls throughout the cities, making them easy to traverse while staying inside the air-conditioned environment. When temperatures spike – as they do on most days – crowds flock to the malls; the restaurants have followed suit. You can eat everything from excellent snack food to Michelin-starred meals in malls in Hong Kong and Singapore. But what does all that have to do with Shanghai?

While on our Beyond the Barrell culinary walk, we popped into an old-school coffee shop for a cup of strong brew. Rustic spots such as this one are not far from century-old opulent Parisian-style cafes, sometimes staffed by tuxedoed waiters – it’s all part of the complexities and contrasts of life in Porto, which we dig into on our full-day culinary exploration.

You would think Sérgio Oliveira, the owner of Conga in Porto and the secret-keeper of its legendary recipe for bifanas, would be tired of the restaurant’s signature dish. But you’d be wrong. “As much as I try not to eat it, I cannot. It is impossible,” he says. "One always eats it; there is no chance not to.” It’s a simple but addictive dish. Pork, cooked all day in a mysterious spicy sauce and stuffed into a piece of bread that looks a bit like a roll– at first glance, it does not seem to impress. But Porto continues to hide the best and tastiest of its secrets in the simplest things in life. "It was my father who invented the famous bifanas with this wonderful sauce,” says Sérgio, who’s been running Conga the last eight years. It’s been more than 40 years since Manuel Oliveira returned to Portugal from Angola and opened the restaurant in 1976.

Pictured is an invigorating Greek breakfast of yogurt, honey and walnuts at a local institution. This is how we begin our culinary walk of downtown Athens!

Winding between the teenage fashion havens of Harajuku and Shinjuku is the ultra-hip Cat Street, lined with countless second-hand clothing stores and embellished with a single origin coffee shop. Just a stone’s throw to its south lies a nondescript concrete building. Unassuming from the outside, for the past 15 months its second floor hid a sake bar. The interior was a stylish and modern take on Japanese design – a sleek counter in the center, tatami mats and sliding doors splitting the space into three. Here, a young crowd gathered, sampling the latest sake and regional dishes – from Miyagi beef tongue meatballs and Iwate squid sashimi to Akita smoked pickled daikon topped with cream cheese. Given its relatively short residency, one might be forgiven for thinking the bar was a trend or a poorly conceived dream. But Mysh, (pronounced “my shu” meaning “my sake”) didn’t go out of business, nor were any of its members of staff full time. Their lease having expired, the founders decided to take some time out before finding a new home – time to review their goal of creating something more than a dining establishment, of creating a community space. Currently, the bar only exists as a monthly pop-up event, but its founding story and model are indicative of Tokyo’s broader culinary culture - one that is simultaneously steeped in tradition while constantly reinventing itself under the city’s bright neon lights.

Winding between the teenage fashion havens of Harajuku and Shinjuku is the ultra-hip Cat Street, lined with countless second-hand clothing stores and embellished with a single origin coffee shop. Just a stone’s throw to its south lies a nondescript concrete building. Unassuming from the outside, for the past 15 months its second floor hid a sake bar. The interior was a stylish and modern take on Japanese design – a sleek counter in the center, tatami mats and sliding doors splitting the space into three. Here, a young crowd gathered, sampling the latest sake and regional dishes – from Miyagi beef tongue meatballs and Iwate squid sashimi to Akita smoked pickled daikon topped with cream cheese. Given its relatively short residency, one might be forgiven for thinking the bar was a trend or a poorly conceived dream. But Mysh, (pronounced “my shu” meaning “my sake”) didn’t go out of business, nor were any of its members of staff full time. Their lease having expired, the founders decided to take some time out before finding a new home – time to review their goal of creating something more than a dining establishment, of creating a community space. Currently, the bar only exists as a monthly pop-up event, but its founding story and model are indicative of Tokyo’s broader culinary culture - one that is simultaneously steeped in tradition while constantly reinventing itself under the city’s bright neon lights.

When Nikos Thomas was desperately looking for work in 2005, he was forced to switch gears from music and take on a particularly unglamorous gig: working at the Hooters in Athens Mall as a grill cook, the best-paying job he could find. Little did this rocker know he would be sacrificing his life-long passion of music for a new and tastier one – cooking. Two years out from his Hooters gig, Nikos found himself enrolled at a chefs’ school, eventually moving on to work in restaurants, then hired on as chef at a hotel on the island of Zakynthos. And as Nikos opened himself up to new passions, more found its way into his life.