The Brooklyn Food Tour
/So you know I love food, and I obviously love New York, so when I found out I was headed to the Big Apple the first thing I did was plan my trip around breakfast lunch, dinner, and when I was going to get that amazing NY hot dog.
I was staying in Brooklyn with Hotel Indigo where I haven’t really had the chance to explore. You’re probably thinking you don’t want to take some touristy tour but when you aren’t quite sure where you are a tour is a great way to orient yourself with a new area.
And the Brooklyn Food Tour was my top choice. A combination of walking and bus tour of six different locations around the bustling Borough of Brooklyn.
We were picked up outside a cute cafe in Greenwich Village where our tour guide, Alyssa, gave us a brief spiel about the tour and then launched into in-depth history of the major neighborhoods of New York.
I have been to New York hundreds of times, my sister even lived there for years and I had never heard the full history of this amazing city. Alyssa made sure we were all well informed while also cracked light jokes so it didn’t feel like you were in a college history class.
Brooklyn is much larger than Manhattan with many different religions and heritage backgrounds creating a melting pot of delicious foods.
We had six stops, but that didn’t stop Alyssa from pointing out even more amazing restaurants for us to come back to later. But lets get to the good stuff…
This restaurant is run around the entire concept of the meatball. From the outside, the small door leads you to believe you are walking into a meatball bar, but once you are inside (there is a bar) you move to the back where there is a larger opening lit by a skylight, giving this restaurant the warm and natural feel it deserves.
The manager gave us a brief history of how The Meatball Shop got started, different locations, and the menu.
There are always 5 meatballs on the menu at all time: Classic beef, chicken (which is also gluten free), veggie, and pork. The fifth ball is rotating based on the season, during christmas they have a reindeer ball, easter is a rabbit ball, you get the picture.
The Brooklyn location and the Lower East Side location are open till 4am, so if you find yourself out on the town and craving some balls, better head over to The Meatball Shop.
They served us the classic beef meatball with marinara sauce. Now, my momma might kill me for saying this but damn, that was the best meatball I have ever had. Everyone hates this word but they were so moist, the homemade marinara was absorbed into each bite along with different spices and aromas that make your mouth water. I could have eaten about 5, just saying.
We headed around the corner to Oasis, an order-at-the-counter mediterranean cuisine restaurant.
The Oasis
If you have been reading my blog for a while you’ll remember that one time I was vegan, Or maybe not because it was a very brief moment in time where my love for Chick-Fil-A trumped any need for a salad. Anyway, I ate a lot of falafel, I even learned to make my own…kind of. So walking into The Oasis I was already delighted when they placed a plate freshly fried falafel. They are gluten free and vegan and delicious.
I drizzled the homemade tahini sauce over the steaming felafel and dug in. The outside was a crispy golden brown and the inside was like a mediterranean cloud.
I ate two..
We walked a couple blocks back to the bus where Gerald, our bus driver, drove us through Brooklyn to the Polish quarter to a restaurant called Krolewskie Jaldo, or literally translated to King’s Feast.
So apparently everything we had eaten before was appetizers and this was the grand meal. And boy was it grand.
There was a table fit for a king’s feast through the center of the restaurant which was filled with dark wood and portraits of Polish kings on the wall. In the center of the table was multiple plates of pirogies, a traditional polish dish that is kind of like a fried mashed potato, covered in carmelized onions and other plates filled with Polish sausage and mashed potatoes.
Although we had the traditional meat and potatoes Polish meal, the creator of the restaurant wanted to have a Polish restaurant that went beyond meat and potatoes, so while I definitely recommend the sausage and pirogies make sure you order some other Polish delicacies to get the full experience.
Our meal didn’t end there, once they had cleared the table plates of a traditional Polish dessert appeared in front of us. I am quite certain I did not write down the correct spelling of this dish so I will just explain it to you all. This was a plate filled with thinly sliced Granny Smith apples that had been deep fried and covered in powdered sugar.
Need I say more? I don’t think so either.
This time we didn’t walk, we waddled out of the restaurant back to the bus.
The great thing about a bus tour is you have the opportunity to explore more than one neighborhood of Brooklyn. Instead of being confined to a few block radius, so we traveled across town to Table 87.
This is a classic New York coal fired pizza. But wait, it gets better than just New York coal fired pizza.
These creative pizza makers let their dough rise for two days before turning it into the delicious pizza we tried. This creates those air pockets giving your pizza the extra crunch here and there.
They top their pizza with sweet tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and cubes of parmesan for a burst of salt, then garnished with wilted basil.
There are a lot of places known for their coal fired pizza but what sets Table 87 aside from all the rest is their pizza by the slice. Most places make you order a whole pie, but here at Table 87 you can order slice by slice.
If you have ever been to New York you know they boast about their water, but it is said that it is the minerals in the special New York tap water that gives their pizza and bagels a distinct flavor. And let me tell you, that was some damn good pizza.
We also got to order wine.
As if we weren’t already stuffed, we still had two stops left. But they were dessert stops and we all know dessert goes in a different part of the stomach.
Monteleone’s
When you think of food in New York City, Italian is the first thing that comes to my mind. Little Italy near SoHo is a hot tourist destination but in recent years, China Town has slowly encroached on the historic Little Italy, sending some of its favorite restaurants to the burroughs.
Because Arthur Ave in the Bronx isn’t as accustomed to tourists, Carole Gardens in Brooklyn is the best place to curb that Little Italy craving.
Surrounded by gorgeous brownstones, Monteleone’s catches your eye with the beautiful, hand painted cakes in the window. The shop isn’t very wide, a classic Italian dessert shop with tables in a row down one wall and a bar filled with all different types of goodies down the other.
The sweet smell of icing hit me right as the door opened and after a quick look around the shop, Alyssa started slinging canolis out to all of us.
These were the real deal, the crispy shell stuffed with that sweet Italian cream was to die for! If only they UberEats to Florida I would be ordering some right now.
Our last and final stop took us to DUMBO, which stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. It is famous for Washington street with the iconic view of the Manhattan Bridge framing the Empire State Building. Get their early for the best pictures.
We hopped off the bus with the most perfect view of both the Manhattan and the Brooklyn bridge, right on the waters edge. We headed to Jaques Torres.
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. From ice cream to cookies this little chocolate shop has it all. We sampled their famous BonBons and chocolate chip cookies and they left that tray unattended and I definitely went back for seconds, thirds, and fourths for those chocolate chip cookies. My goodness they were delicious.
If you are craving a sweet treat before your picture in DUMBO make sure you stop here.
You can sit by the window and sip a hot chocolate and watch the people walk by or you can take to go and sit on the rocks by the river with the best view of New York’s famous bridges.
The Brooklyn Food tour was a definite must. Even if you aren’t a huge foodie these tours show you the history and the culture of Brooklyn from where it was to where it is now, but the food is definitely worth it.
