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Grand Sablon Square, Brussels: Belgian Chocolates

With so many artisanal chocolate makers, Brussels can seem like one big bulging chocolate box. But if you don’t have time to scour all the city’s sweet shops, head to the venerable Grand Sablon Square for a taste of Brussels’s two contrasting approaches to the cocoa bean. Chocolatier Pierre Marcolini’s hand-dipped chocolates, plucked from glass cases by clerks wearing clinical white gloves, come infused with unexpected, pupil-dilating flavors (yuzu, a Japanese citrus; tonka bean; Moroccan pink pepper berries; bergamot; mango). Wittamer,on the other hand, is all old-school elegance, its display cases filled with classic pralines and green pistachio bonbons. If you have room for only one taste, though, make it the heart-shaped raspberry chocolate that could pass for Brussels’s own abiding valentine. —Raphael Kadushin

Barrio del Carmen, Valencia: Horchata

You needn’t wander far in Valencia before stumbling across a street cart hawking the cool milky drink called orxata (Valencian for horchata) to locals during their almuerzo (midday meal). But a stroll through the crooked, cobbled streets of Barrio del Carmen reveals the city’s few remaining horchaterías, which promise a respite from the scorching Spanish sun. Likely introduced by Moors between the eighth and 13th centuries and made with pulped chufas (tiger nuts), horchata falls in the shadow of Valencia’s other iconic foods (paella, oranges, and tomatoes) but is such a part of the city’s identity that it’s controlled by a regulatory council that protects the beverage with Denominación de Origen status. First stop is the 200-year-old Horchatería de Santa Catalina, veneered with sunny, hand-painted cera­mics inside and out. Across the street,Horchatería El Siglo is the newcomer, opened in 1836. Inside, a discreet balcony overlooks black-and-white checkerboard tiles and gold-trimmed neoclassical mirrors, while umbrella-topped tables spill onto the front patio, an ideal place to people-watch over a slushy horchata granizado and a plateful offartons—cakey, oblong pastries that remain a traditional accompaniment to the drink. —Adam H. Graham

Ngu Xa village, Hanoi: Pho Cuon

Once a Vietnamese village known for its brass casting, Ngu Xa, on Hanoi’s Truc Bach lake, is now synonymous with another lustrous product: pho cuon, silky white sheets of uncut pho soup noodles wrapped around fried beef, lettuce, and cilantro and dunked in nuoc cham (fish sauce with lime, rice vinegar, garlic, and chili). Light and fresh, soft yet crunchy—and cheap ($1.50 buys 10 rolls)—pho cuon has become trendy enough for 60-odd specialty restaurants to materialize in the environs. Mrs. Chinh of Chinh Thang, a family-run restaurant at 7 Mac Dinh Chi Street, maintains she conceived the dish ten years ago after she ran out of broth and persuaded some late-night revelers looking for a bowl of noodle soup to eat her leftovers as rolls. Others claim the dish is actually a retro trend; the fact that it resurfaced by a lake called Truc Bach, which often translates as “White Silk,” is poetic happenstance. —Connla Stokes