Thursday, September 1, 2011

Free Tours by Food

Free Tours by Foot is adding a Food Tour of Greenwich Village! I followed Courtney through the streets yesterday, sampling savory delicacies in preparation of the Food Tour. Several of her friends came along to advise which locations should be on the tour. What a blast!

We had young people from Eastern Europe, Asia, England, etc. and from NYC tasting local favorites.
One of the great things about eating in Greenwich Village is the extensive variety of foods, from Middle Eastern, to Asian (Indian, Chinese, Japanese) to South American (Brazilian and Peruvian) to Island (Cuban and Puerto Rican) to Vegan and U.S. Down Home Cooking.

So we sampled pizza, deciding which provider will be on the tour, traipsing along Bleeker — even stopping for rice balls as Faicco’s — over to MacDougal for pizza, falafel and kati rolls....

The end of the walk included sweets — we must have sweets — with some members of the group choosing gelato at Grom, others suggesting cupcakes at Amy’s, and several of us satisfying our sweet tooth at Milk and Cookies with their bag of broken cookies.

What makes the final cut will be seen soon. In the meantime, try Courtney’s Food Tour of the Lower East Side or Chinatown, which starts next week. Courtney has inside stories about the neighborhoods and the shops she visits. Since the tour is free—you are not paying $40+ to taste items you may not like—you can choose which foods to sample at each location, or to choose nothing at all. I have found that the individuals on these tours are friendly, often offering to share their samplings.

These tours can cost you less than $20/person, and a family desiring to divide up items can save even more. This allows you to be generous with Courtney at the end of the tour!