Central Village/SoHo Food & Culture Tour

It was so awesome to get to tour Greenwcih Village with a guide that was so knowledgeable. We got to taste food from great little restaurants and food shops.We also got history and facts about the area. The combination of food tasting and factoids was just right. I highly recommend this tour. (ask for Susan as your tour guide)

I enjoyed seeing the neighborhood and hearing about its history. The food, though, was less interesting than I expected. The Greenwich Village and Chelsea Market tours offered better selections.

This was our second tour; we did the Central Village tour last Thanksgiving it was with Cindy and it was fantastic). Our guide (Rahim..sp??) was wonderfully enthusiastic and humorous, BUT, he kept callings the group "guys" WAY too many times, as in "OK, guys, let's go here" or "Hey, guys, this is a really great place....". Also, we had two run-ins with neighbors. They were silly/stupid/inappropriate locals, BUT, it appeared to us that Rahim was too confrontational with them. It felt awkward. Also, some of his neighborhood facts/comments were not correct. I'm by no means an NYC expert, but he'd say things that I knew simply were not true from a common sense standpoint. For instance, he told us that St. Anthony's Church (1860's) was the oldest parish in NYC. That's not true...it's the oldest parish in NYC specifically serving the Italian community.....the plaque says so. Lastly, it just felt that much of his recommendations were advertising for places along the route rather than discussions on food diversity and availability. It's hard to describe what made it seem that way, but it just did! Otherwise, we thoroughly enjoyed it and will do another one of your food tours on our next visit.

When the tour ended, I went with a couple from the tour shopping and for coffee at a couple of the places mentioned on the tour. We passed the rest of the tour group at a pastry shop also pointed out by our guide. Can't wait for my next trip to NY. I'd revisit the Greenwich/Soho area to eat and shop (at least window shop) at the businesses listed by our guide.

I have done foods of NY tours in the past and have really loved them. They were the highlight of our trip! This one was not as entertaining, unfortunately. I felt like the tour guide was not as entertaining as my past guides. I felt like she was limited in what she had to say about the culture aspect and then she kept highlighting these "fantastic" places that we didn't go in to. Her reviews of restaurants in the area didn't vary at all so it was hard to know which ones really were good. For a tour of 3 hours in length, you really need it to be fun and informative. I felt like it was a little lacking in both of these aspects.

This is the third food tour I have taken with this company and it is definately the best. The others were great, but this one had better food selection, more variety and larger portions than previous tours. It had more history of interest to my age group presented in an enthusiastic way by our tour guide. We both thoroughly enoyed ourselves.

Highly recommend this tour.

comming from long island the city is a diffrent world and the village is diffrent again so now when i walk the streets i see it in a different way not just a blur of shops and stores. marsac bethpage li ny

This tour was unique in that you really felt immersed in the culture and history of the Village and SoHo. By the time we were done, we felt like we knew the streets and could navigate back to where we had been to check out the stores & eateries in more detail. Other reviews mention that they wish they had allotted for time to hang out in the Village after the tour, and we highly agree. We wished we hadn't made theatre reservations so that we could have just wandered and explored the neighborhoods futher while eating our way through. The cultural/historical background really helped us to absorb the vibe of these culturally rich neighborhoods of New York in a way that you would never realize by just walking around. Susan did a great job at explaining the history and talking about the individual eateries and how everything has evolved over time to what makes these neighborhoods so amazing today. She also did a great job at keeping us on schedule realizing that 3 hours means 3 hours so that you can plan your day when many are trying to pack a lot into what they are seeing while in the city. This was by far a unique experience and one that I wished I had done sooner. Can't wait to take the other tours offered now, too!

we loved our guide, rahem. he had so much valuable information and was extremely enthusiastic. would highly recommend this tour to locals or visitors.