Ahoy! Food Tours

I had the pleasure of experiencing a food tour with Ahoy! Food Tours. Ahoy! Food Tours specializes in Little Italy and Chinatown cultural and walking tours in New York City. The journey was filled to the brim with cultural information and fantastic food. Our guide Maryana seamlessly led us through Mott Street and Mulberry Street on an incredible, mouthwatering journey.

The journey began at the unassuming Silk Road Cafe on Mott Street. There we started our morning with hot jasmine infused green tea and an egg custard tart.

 

We left the Silk Road Cafe and headed around the corner to Tasty Dumpling where we tasted pork and chive pan-seared dumplings. The dumplings were phenomenal, and I’ve now set a goal to teach myself how to pan-sear food.

 

At Shanghai Cuisine, we tasted soup dumplings and rice cakes. While I wasn’t a fan of the soup dumplings, I did love the rice cakes! And yes, those are rice cakes in these pictures. It’s worth noting that Shanghai Cuisine had the cleanest bathrooms of any of the restaurants we visited in Chinatown.

 

 

Before leaving Chinatown, we visited Doyers Street. Doyers Street was once considered the most dangerous street in NYC and was once referred to as the Bloody Angle. It’s a pretty intriguing story. You can read about the Bloody Angle HERE.  Today, the Bloody Angle is beautiful with murals painted on the streets and walls.

We left Chinatown at the start of the Autumn Moon Festival and arrived in Little Italy during the Feast of San Gennaro. Seriously, I have not seen so many people on the streets at one time.  Our guide was able to guide us through the crowds.

We arrived at Alleva, the oldest Italiane cheese shop in Little Italy. Yes, this is the cheese shop that Tony Danza is a partner in and occasionally visits the store.  At Alleva, we sampled mozzarella and prosciutto.

We left Alleva and walked next door to Piemonte Ravioli Company where we tried their gnocchi in marinara sauce.  The gnocchi was life changing! Our guide informed us that Piemonte supplies the majority of Little Italy’s restaurants, and we immediately made plans to return to Little Italy for dinner later in the week.

We left Piemonte and headed down the block to Di Palos. At Di Palos, we tasted cow milk cheese, sheep milk cheese, and olives. I LOVED the sheep’s milk cheese, but the olives were my least favorite item we ate on our tour.

 

 

Our tour ended with an epic cannoli from Ferrara’s! We weren’t able to visit the storefront of Ferrara’s due to the crowd. Our guide picked up cannoli’s and delivered them to us. The cannoli did not disappoint!

 

 

The Chinatown & Little Italy Food Tour did not disappoint. I only wish that we had more time on the tour in Little Italy.