So my dream day is to be driven around to different delicious destinations where I can eat and buy as much food as possible and then nap the afternoon away. This came true last Saturday when I went along to one of the Auckland Food Tours with Edd and Mr 12. Dreams really do come true.
I am a big fan of food. I am also a big fan of not having to put in a lot of effort in order to eat a lot of food. It’s a dangerous combination (just ask my waist line) but for those food-inclined, a food tour is like a mini miracle. Food tours obviously are a thing that have always existed outside of my imagination, yet somehow I have just never successfully encountered one until last weekend.
Needless to say, when asked if I would like to come along on one of the food tours I did not take a lot of persuading.
All the details on the tour set up are located over on the website for Auckland Food Tours so I’m just going to mention a couple of my favourite places and then show you a few delicious photos.
Our first stop, Monsoon Espresso, was one of my favourites although my love of coffee may make me biased. We were shown the coffee roasting process whilst we got to down the good stuff in their beautiful roastery showroom, and whats even better is that they have a cafe in the city! The rest of the tour included Lebanese, Russian, German, Italian and Middle Eastern style cuisines and the type of stops varied from the cafe to a cheese maker in Dairy Flat, with everything delicious that you could imagine in between.
There were several places that I will definitely go back to again, one of which is Barakah Foods, the Lebanese supermarket in Wairau that was full of hidden treasures for a super reasonable price. The little unassuming store is packed full of the most delicious things like pomegranate molasses, rosewater, tinned charcoal roasted eggplant, relishes and jams, fresh olives and feta. I’ve only scraped the surface of this shops offerings and I will be back there before Christmas to spend all of my money.
Along the way we met a variety of incredibly friendly foodies who talked us through their passions in food and let us eat many delicious samples (we definitely did not need lunch). At one point I had a delicious German pastry, warm and doughy and full of creamy poppyseed paste (which does not sound as good as it tasted). As it was thrust in to my hand, still warm from the oven, I think I had some form of delicious bread related epiphany (perhaps along the lines of “oh my god, bread! Delicious!). I also tried Russian dumplings for the first time and may have eaten far more than my share (not my fault). I also ate a lot of cheese, but what else is new?
Overall Thoughts
Would I do another food tour again? This seems like a silly question because I would happily do one every weekend if I could. These would make such a great gift (oh hey there Christmas!) or the perfect experience for someone visiting Auckland. It was such a fun way to get to know some of those secret places that people discover and with the amount of tastings we received it would be well worth the price. Anne-Marie, who hosted us, was amazing and did a wonderful job of sharing her obvious love for food with each of us. Even Mr 12 was totally obsessed with the day and could not stop raving about how much fun he had.