Lower East Side Eats Food Tour

Matt was great... very personable and knowledgeable. Great spots to visit.. Totally worth it... plenty of food!

We enjoyed our small group tour through New York's Lower East Side. The food samplings were well-selected and of good quality and quantity. Shout out to our tour guide Alec for his insights and personal experiences which made the tour even more enjoyable.

Great tour and our guide Matt was awesome. Very friendly and knowledgeable! Will definitely refer our friends and family.

The tour started at Yonah Schimmel's Knish bakery. A knish is a filled dumpling and the original version contained potato, real rib sticking food. Then we went to Russ and Daughters, a novel place since no one ever named their store after their female descendants. There we had pickled herring which made us think of our dads who both loved the stuff. Sweet morsels of rugelach took that sour taste right out of our mouths. Once we got inside Katz's Deli, we recognized it immediately. This was where the famous scene from IWhere Harry Met Sally/I was filmed, and Meg Ryan showed Billy Crystal what good acting was all about. Their pastrami sandwiches are towers of meat on rye and the walls are festooned with salamis. Signs urge you to, Senda salami to your boy in the Army, a tradition begun in World War II. Economy Candy has been open since the 1930's and was floor to ceiling with sweet stuff. Many long gone candies from our childhood are still for sale here like Mary Janes, candy dots glued on paper, candy necklaces and candy cigarettes. Surely no one can live without chocolate band-aids. We could smell The Pickle Guys long before we got to their establishment. In the days before refrigeration, pickling was a primary way to preserve vegetables. The traditional pickles are soaked in brine and brought tears to our eyes, they tasted so strong. At Kisser's Bialys we could have had bagels, a delicacy long associated with this part of the world, but their cousins, bialys were unfamiliar to us. Bagels are boiled in water before they are baked bialys are simply baked and don't have holes in the middle. Ours was filled with onions in the middle and much more delicious than a bagel. Wonder where I can find a bialy where we live. Our final stop was a much newer establishment. The owner started out making doughnuts at home and taking them to delis on his bike, but his novel flavors were so popular, soon everyone was coming to him.