New York Food Tour in Little Italy and China Town
As excited as I was about seeing New York City for the first time and seeing all the iconic places I’d seen photos of, my main focus on the trip was food. Obviously, when I got a chance to go on a New York City Food Tour in Little Italy and Chinatown, I got on board right away.
The tour started off in Little Italy. The guide walked us around a bit, showing us several historical sites such as a restaurant where a famous mafia gangster was killed, the Little Italy museum, and some recommended restaurants. I have to admit, I was starving, so I was less interested in the chatter than I was in getting to our first stop, Alleva Dairy. Our first tasting included fresh mozarella, made that morning, along with prosciutto imported from Parma, Italy. Since the mozzarella was fresh, it didn’t have any salt added. The tour guide suggested wrapping the prosciutto around the cheese, which I did, and it made for a scrumptious combination.
Fresh mozzarrella and prosciutto
Next up was Di Palo’s Fine Food for more cheese. You’ll never catch me complaining about too much cheese! This shop has been around since 1910. As soon as you walk in, the aroma alone will get your tummy rumbling. Meats, breads, cheeses and wines decorate the shop and the line often weaves throughout the store and even out the door. Luckily, we got our tray of delights right away. We sampled several pieces of two different kinds of cheeses, one made from sheep’s milk and the other made from cow’s milk. Both cheeses were tasty, but I preferred the sharper, more distinct taste of the sheep milk cheese.
The counter with meat hanging overhead
Mmm cheese
After all those savory samples, we moved on to the Ferrara Bakery and Cafe for a world famous cannoli. Cannolis are a traditional Sicilian dessert made of a crispy tube with a creamy ricotta and chocolate chip mixture inside. I’m not much of a sweets person (unless it’s ice cream) so I didn’t expect this place to wow me. However, I found that the tiny cannoli was quite light and pleasant. One mini cannoli was perfect for me, but if you have a serious sweet tooth, it would be easy to go overboard with these snack-sized desserts.
How many could you eat?
That was our last stop in what’s left of Little Italy, so we headed towards Chinatown. This was the halfway point of the tour, so we stopped into Pongrsi Thai Restaurant for a much needed rest with plenty of ice cold water. Thai is one of my absolute favorite cuisines, so I was really excited about this place. However, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. It was set up family style, with some large plates for us to share spread out on the table. There were two dishes available, a peanut-sauce chicken and broccoli and Pad See Ew with tofu. While neither was bad, they didn’t really jump out at me as something incredible. I would have liked more spice, both for flavor and hotness.
Once we’d cooled down and rested our feet a bit, we moved onto my favorite part of the tour – the chinese dumplings! We walked over to a tiny establishment called Tasty Dumpling. The signage and size is so simple that it would be easy to walk right past this place without knowing you were missing out on some incredible food.
See that tiny little yellow awning? That’s the Tasty Dumpling
The Tasting Dumpling has a few different kinds of dumplings, both fresh and frozen so you can cook them at home. We tried the pork and chive variety. Their dumplings are pan-seared to a crispy perfection, making the texture and taste work together very harmoniously. I was in love.
Pork and chive dumpling
Next, we got dessert early at Everything Frosted. This speciality cake shop is run by John, a chef so talented that he trained with the executive pastry chef that currently works at the White House! The shop is no longer open to walk-ins, but they do take orders as small as 6 cupcakes. We got to sample a very unique flavor, a cupcake made with the Chinese lychee fruit. Once again, I’m not huge on sweets, but John’s philosophy is that sweets should have distinct flavors, not just sugar, so he crafts his cakes differently than most people. The cupcake was heartier, with a texture closer to cornbread, with a buttercream frosting so light that it seemed like whipped cream. If I could have justified ordering 6 cupcakes for myself, I would have.
Lychee cupcake
Our last stop was the Nom Wah Tea Parlor for a traditional egg roll. This egg roll is not like the one that comes with your combo from the nearest chinese take-out chain – this is the original egg roll, with actual egg inside. The roll was filled with an assortment of veggies as well as a thin egg-crepe. With a little duck sauce on top, I can honestly say this was the best egg roll I’ve ever tasted.
Overall, this tour was really great. Other than the slightly disappointing Thai food, everything was incredible. Not only did I get to sample a wide variety of foods, but I was able to get a great tour of the Little Italy and Chinatown area, including many hidden gems that even frequent visitors of the area might not know about. Personally, I care more about the food than the history of the area, but I was impressed by the tour guide’s knowledge. Of course, she seemed to have some sort of script or basic talking points in mind, but she was very good at answering follow up questions in depth. We were also given a listed of recommended places within the area, along with several coupons. I went back to some of the restaurants we sampled and visited one of the recommended places, so the tour was extra useful for me. If you are in New York City and love food, I highly recommend this tour.
Disclaimer: I was allowed to attend this tour free of charge, but the opinion are all my own.
