Greenwich Village Food Tour, NYC – An interview with our Guest Stars

You’ve heard what I’ve had to say about the Greenwich Village food tour. Here’s a bonus post on what our guest stars (Bijish Perumpully and Jisha Ramachandran) thought of it.

MT : You guys were on such a short trip to NYC, but you opted to do the Greenwich Village Food and Culture Tour as opposed to the more popular touristy activities. What did you think of it?

B : The walk itself was pleasant,at the most. The restaurants were great, but I liked the buildings more.  I liked the personal touch there. The passion,that they really cared about preserving some of the old buildings and culture. I think the biggest challenge that cities like NYC face is that they really need to upgrade, but without losing their character or culture.

J : It’s a decent outing. The walk was good. Walking through streets is one of the best ways to get to know a city.

MT : We agree with that. Walking around is the best way to experience any place. We have also found it is the best way to find your bearings in an unfamiliar place.

B : I want to add that I would have liked to cover a bit more area than what was covered. We only walked around two or three blocks.

MT : It’s a three hour long tour. How did you find the pace – the number of tastings and the way they were spaced?

B : Spacing was fine for me. Some tasting portions were a bit too big or a bit too sweet.

MT : What did you think of Barri, our guide?

B : The guide, even though not highly charming, was knowledgeable. It was probably not one of her best days. She looked preoccupied. I’d say she was sweet.

J : She was good. She seemed to know the area and its cuisines well.

MT : What about the restaurants and the food?

J : There could have been more variety in the cuisines. I understand however that probably that location has only Italian restaurants.

B : There was way more Italian than any other food. Dutch, English, German and African were completely neglected. African being the elephant there. I can understand that they didn’t own many restaurants back in time, but I’m assuming they would have opened up a few by now.

MT : Which tasting was your favorite?

J : Joe’s Pizza

B : The pizza and the meatballs. I found the small hall where Barri said they had book launches and poetry readings pretty cool and unexpected. The place was in a basement.

(MT:  Cornelia Street Cafe.)

B : What surprised me was that nothing was exceptionally out of this world or over the top luxurious there, but it was functionally well defined. Just what you’d expect from a busy city like New York.

MT : Do you think it was worth the time and money? How likely are you to recommend it to someone?

B : Hmmm it wasn’t so expensive.  Just to take a walk with some strangers, it wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t recommend it  to first time tourists (to the Big Apple). Actually it depends on who is travelling.

J : It’s worth the time if you in NYC for a few days and are interested in food. Value for money: 3/5. Likely to recommend: 3/5

 

Notes :

MT – My Travelogue

B – Bijish Perumpully

J – Jisha Ramachandran

Greenwich Village Food Tour, NYC

I am so excited. One of my dearest friends and his wife are visiting NYC over the holidays. We’ve set up a time for a skype call and I’m going to help him plan his trip.

<Bijish calling><Answer with video>

I have reviewed his itinerary and sent him my comments, and he has sent back his comments on mine. We are just going to fine tune the plan and should be done in 15 minutes tops, right? Wrong. We spend a good part of the morning re-figuring what we had already figured out. I have a three options, I could join them either for

1. a standup comedy show
2. the Greenwich Village food tour which they were so keen on doing
3. Phantom of the Opera

Phantom of the Opera is something I want to take the husband to, and since he wouldn’t be able to make it that is out. The standup comedy sounds promising but that I could always go to, so that gets put on standby. The food tour however is something for which I might  be hard pressed to find company.

what do we live for, if not to eat?

The day of the tour is finally here. In NYC’s sea of black coats it should have been easy to spot Bijish in his bright yellow jacket, but I admit it took me a few moments. We joke that he should give it to our guide Barri, and make it easy for the group to keep track of her.

The tour starts with a slice of Joe’s thin crust pizza. They call themselves a Greenwich village institution. While the dough was chewy and the sauce had just the right non-sugary sweetness to it, and is great for the New York roll/fold and eat style, I do wish the crust had been crisper though, so that it would be easier to fold. As it is, it lends itself more to rolling than to folding. The next tasting is at O&Co. Olive Oil shop. Believe me, they have some good stuff in here. Try their truffle oil on popcorn and you’ll never want butter on it again. Our hosts  predict a sharp rise in olive oil prices for the next 2 years owing to some worm/insect attack on the trees in Europe. They advise to stock up, you can do as you please. Moving on, a few doors down is Faicco’s Italian Specialties. We wait outside as Barri pops in and comes out with a box of humongous rice balls called Arancini.  I find the fried mix  of rice and cheese a little bland by itself, but I imagine it would get its flavour from the sauce. More on Italian sauce later.

We walk down the narrow street, and get a little perspective on life in the ‘hood in the old times, and walk back to our next stop, Pesce Pasta which is right next door to Faicco’s. Faicco’s, by the way is a great place to pick up pork, and is where Pesce Pasta gets their meat from. At Pesce Pasta, I content myself with steamed veggies, which felt like they were in the freezer moments before  they  were put in the steamer, while the others dig into their meatballs with gusto. Bijish and Jisha tell me that the meatballs are really good.  Pesce Pasta is the only non-vegetarian tasting on the tour. The tour is very vegetarian friendly.

…because true love and fresh air don’t fill stomachs

We’ve eaten quite a bit by now and it is only fair that we do some walking before we eat some more. We walk a couple of blocks to the lovely Rafele Ristorante. Here we are served Eggplant Rollatini. The eggplant slices are superbly thin and I really like the taste as well as the place. Barri tells us we could get a drink for $12 more and there are some specials for the tour. We get the Sangria and it’s good.

Now  we’ve tried four Italian dishes on  tour and common thread in three of those has been the tomato based sauce. When I make pasta at home, the husband says my sauce is not real sauce, it’s just tomatoes, but here’s the thing, if today’s tour is anything to go by,  that’s what Italian sauce is – tomatoes and basil. The secret is the tomatoes. They use San Marzono tomatoes. I can’t tell if these are available fresh in NYC but you get them in cans at Faicco’s, and perhaps at other delis/grocery stores as well.

For desserts, we pop over to Milk and Cookies down the street across the avenue. I love choco-chip cookies, but these just don’t cut it. We can taste the sugar crystals. We walk around the area a little and are pointed out the supposed inspiration for O’Henry’s Last Leaf, among other things.  We have learnt by now to distinguish between different styles of houses and the periods in which they were built.  We head over to Murray’s Cheese Shop to try out some of their gourmet cheese. Their cheese-straws are something I would definitely like to serve at my next wine and cheese soiree. Murray’s has a cheese bar to help you with pairings and offers cheese classes to make you the cheese authority of your circle.

hit me with your best

Our last and final tasting is at Pasticceria Rocco – the place to go if you are craving cannolis in West Village. Most places pre-make their cannolis, causing them to become soggy by the time they get to you, but not Roccos. At Roccos, we are assured, cannolis are freshly stuffed – stuffed after you order them.  I can tell you the ones we got had crisp shells and were really fresh.

The tour was fun in all, but it would have been nicer if in addition to giving us insights to the restaurants and area, our guide had also provided some guidance on what to look for in each tasting -the smell, the texture, the broad flavours, the subtle hints,  the key ingredient of each dish. She did do this for the first tasting, so I was able to appreciate what I was eating better and will be able to discern a good New York style pizza from a horde of posers. If this could be done for each tasting, I would be more likely to recommend this tour.

The tour is 3 hours long, but all the stops were within a circle of 30m radius or maybe even less. It’s not hard walking, but please wear comfortable shoes and be weather appropriately dressed.