For our last day in NYC we decided to take advantage of our hotel’s close proximity to the New York Public Library and tour the famous building with all of its gorgeous architecture. They are celebrating their 100th anniversary so there was an exhibition of cool items from their collection, including a Guttenberg Bible, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and a first edition copy of the music for the Star Spangled Banner. We went through and took photos of the famous reading room (and amusingly found Emily Post’s book on wedding etiquette which we perused for a few minutes). We went down to the children’s room and saw the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals (my favorite is Tigger) and then went next door to Bryant Park to sit outside for a few minutes and relax for a few minutes before heading down to Greenwich Village for our food tour.
So this tour I found out about kind of randomly. I had posted on Twitter that I was going to be in NYC for a few days and was looking for non-standard-tourist things to do. I got a reply from @ohmygola (a new travel recommendation website) asking for a bit more detail about the trip. Before I replied I checked out their website to make sure things we legit and not spam and looked around their existing New York City recommendations, it was there I came upon the Foods of NYC Tours Greenwich Village Food and Culture Walking Tour. I explored their site, checked out a few competitors, but this tour seemed by far the most interesting so I booked tickets for Jeremy and I for the afternoon tour. @ohmygola also formatted my reply tweet to them on their site and I got a response as well, so that was pretty cool.
Ok so we met in front of Murray’s Cheese Shop on Bleecker Street (although we did not taste stuff from them until later) and met our tour guide Bert who handed out water bottles and some coupons for the businesses we’d be visiting on the tour, here’s where we went via photos
Joe's Pizza, for a slice of "true and authentic" New York-style pizza (meaning, crushed tomato sauce, cheese, foldable crust made with NYC tap water)
O&CO for an olive oil tasting and a nutella-like spread made from olive oil and cocoa, yum!
Our tour guide Bert heading to get our next batch of food samples
Arancini from Faicco's Italian Specialties
We then went down into the Cornelia Street Cafe basement where many a famous performer (and performance) have gotten there start
Stuffed mushroom, truffle deviled egg, and bacon-wrapped, gorgonzola stuffed date from Centro Vinoteca. Jeremy and I also enjoyed a quartino of wine gifted to us by two ladies in the group who heard about our recent engagement.
Sweet and spicy salami from Faicco's
*amazing* chocolate chip cookies from Milk & Cookies Bakery, wonderful texture plus it was warm and fresh from their oven
The entertaining staff at Murray's Cheese Shop, where we got an olive, cheese, and cheese pastry sampling.
We ended with a light ricotta dessert specially made for the tour from Scali Caffé
Overall this was a fantastic tour, as we went between the different food places we stopped at cool buildings in Greenwich village, had a bunch of amazing sounding restaurants pointed out to us (essentially anywhere on Bleecker Street is a fantastic place to eat). After the tour we asked Bert for a recommendation for a place to kill an hour or so before we had to head back to the hotel and pick up our stuff to go to the airport, he recommended the Olive Tree Cafe where we enjoyed a great pitcher of sangria and tried not to plan wedding stuff 😉
The trip back to Norfolk was (thankfully) uneventful and we got back to Williamsburg around midnight, concluding a fantastic and (unexpectedly) memorable trip 🙂
Photos: NYPL and Food Tour Flickr Set
