{If you want to read more about our time in Asheville, go here.}
As soon as we started making plans to go to Asheville for our anniversary this month, we knew the main thing we wanted to do was a food tour. We had heard so many great things about food tours; and with the restaurant scene in Asheville absolutely thriving, we knew it was going to be the best way to experience as many different restaurants as possible.
We ended up booking a food tour with Eating Asheville, and as we had breakfast the morning before (our tour started at 2, so we had a big late breakfast and then skipped lunch) I was excited but also nervous. All of my usual picky eating fears were creeping back in to me. What if there is nothing I like? What if everything is too spicy? What if people realize I am a picky eater and then that becomes a topic of conversation and its a whole embarrassing thing?
But I am happy to say, I survived the food tour and I LOVED it. I didn’t love all the food that we had. In fact, nothing that we had was anything I would normally order. But we had tastes of things I enjoyed and it was all without having to commit to an entire dish of something.
We ate at seven different restaurants in Asheville: Biergarten, Lafayette, Mojo, Bomba, Addissae, Modesto, and Santé. (And at 6 of those places, they also gave us a specialty drink.)
I was surprised by some of the things I liked. Pear, gorgonzola, and walnut pizza at Biergarten. A “fish and chips” dish made on a fried plantain at Mojo.
I also had my first oyster ever at Lafayette, and am proud to say I did not find it completely disgusting. (Also, they made us the BEST hurricanes at Lafayette.)
I am not surprised by some of the things I didn’t like. Turns out, Ethiopian food is not really my thing (Gerrit thoroughly enjoyed his though). Herb Gumbo was also not my favorite.
But that’s ok. It was a food tour and the whole point was to TRY foods. Not to have a meal. I didn’t have to order something I was unsure of. It was just brought to me to try, and if I didn’t like it, I didn’t have to feel bad about not eating an entire dish (plus Gerrit could usually finish mine…there were a couple things I found a bit too spicy that he loved). But it was all about the experience, and it was a such a fun one.
(And whenever we travel now (at least sans Evelyn), I know that I will be checking out food tours in other cities.)
