Using virtual db instead of cross join and rule-based filter

Scenario: We have a loopup table of Cities and we want to retrieve the cities whose name starts with a given list from a table Requests.

Solutions:
1. Typically, using Knime nodes, since it is not an exact match, we cannot do a join. Instead, we would:
(i). Do a cross join between the 2 tables;
(ii). Apply a rule-based filter;

2. Alternatively, we can load the tables in a virtual DB (in memory), for example H2, and do SQL-style JOIN