Eat your way through a city on a food tour

A food tour is a few hours on foot with a local guide who knows which stall makes each dish properly, so you taste eight or ten things you would never have ordered alone. It is the quickest way into a city's everyday life, and it works best early in a trip, while there is still time to go back to what you loved.

Where to do it

Bangkok, Thailand

After dark, Yaowarat Road in Chinatown turns into one long open-air kitchen: noodles, grilled seafood, mango sticky rice. It is the most famous street-food strip in Thailand, and Wat Mangkon metro station drops you right in it. Expect heat and crowds.

Hanoi, Vietnam

The Old Quarter eats on low plastic stools, and many stalls cook a single dish: bún chả, phở, bánh mì, then egg coffee. In Vietnam's capital a guide is half food expert, half traffic escort.

George Town, Malaysia

Penang's capital cooks Malay, Chinese and Indian food side by side: char kway teow, assam laksa, nasi kandar. Its old center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so the tour is also a walk past shophouses in Malaysia's best-known food town. Many hawkers keep their own weekly day off, which a guide will know.

Osaka, Japan

Osaka calls itself the city of kuidaore, roughly "eat until you drop". Dotonbori and Kuromon Market serve takoyaki, okonomiyaki and kushikatsu, and evening tours in Japan's kitchen city often end in a tiny standing bar.

Istanbul, Turkey

Many tours start with the ferry across the Bosphorus to Kadıköy, on the Asian side, for meze, stuffed mussels, fish and baklava. The crossing is half the fun in Turkey's biggest city. Portions add up fast, so share.

Bologna, Italy

The home of tortellini, mortadella and the real ragù, served with tagliatelle rather than spaghetti. Tours wind through the Quadrilatero market lanes, and some add a morning at a Parmigiano Reggiano dairy in Italy's Emilia-Romagna.

Mexico City, Mexico

Tacos al pastor, tlacoyos and churros, eaten standing at stalls in the Centro, Roma or Condesa. Traditional Mexican cuisine is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list, and in Mexico's capital a guide knows which busy stalls are busy for the right reasons.

Lima, Peru

Ceviche at lunch, anticuchos (grilled skewers) at night, plus chifa, Chinese-Peruvian, and nikkei, Japanese-Peruvian. Tours in Peru's capital usually walk Barranco or Miraflores. Ceviche is a daytime dish here, so pick a tour that starts before late afternoon.

How to make it happen

• Pick a small group. Ten people or fewer fit into stalls a coach group can't.
• Go hungry, early in the trip, so you have days left to go back.
• Mention allergies and diets when you book, not at the first stop.
• Morning or evening? Morning tours follow markets and breakfast; evening tours follow street food. Ask whether drinks are included.
• Photograph each dish's name so you can order it again.
• Do it cheaply: pick one street, share every plate, follow the longest local queue.

It pairs well with shopping a market and cooking with a local, two more lines in the Taste chapter.