Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Food Tour Extravaganza!

My birthday is in December, which was always a bit of a drag because it was often overshadowed by the holiday season. Miraculously, my friend Julie found a way to make my special day last 10 months - by giving me an awesome birthday present this past weekend, for last year's bday!

We needed a nice day to do it, and certainly lucked out on Sunday - the perfect fall day.
This was the best gift ever! We did the Melting Pot food tour of the Lower East Side, and it was so awesome. Check out http://www.enthusiasticgourmet.com/ for all of the tours available - this would be an amazing activity to do with out of town family/friends, or to do it yourself and learn more about the city!
Susan is a fun and knowledgeable tour guide and I was seriously amazed at all of the places on our tour (some of which have been in business for generations), and all of the delicious food we got to try!
Our first stop: Kossar's Bialys. It smelled so good in there, and really brought me back to my days as a little baker girl at Andrea's Bake Shoppe in Newtown, CT. Ah, memories...
We got to watch the bakers work, learn the difference between a bagel and a bialy, and of course, try one! So good!
Also they have cream cheese. See how excited Daniel is!
One of the great things about this was that it was just me and three friends - our own private tour! Susan, our guide, keeps things small with a max of 8 so you don't feel like you're a bunch of tourists being herded around, but like you're just walking around with a pal that knows her stuff. (Later in the tour we totally maneuvered around one such tour, leaving them in the dust. SUCKERS!)
Since it was just us, she suggested we make a stop at The Doughnut Plant next door to grab coffee.
I usually stay away from doughnuts, since I overdosed on them in high school working at a bakery, but this place I could not resist. We got a pumpkin doughnut - so worth it. This was one of the newer businesses that we visited on the tour but it definitely held its own. AND, they have square jelly donuts that guarantee jelly in each bite! A marvel of modern science, if you ask me.
This concludes the breakfasty portion of the tour. More to come...stay tuned!

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