Di Palo’s has been over for many year now, and yet it is still attracting tons of tourists. Not only is this store located at Little Italy; also, it is filled with traditional products, and it is known for their authentic Italian groceries. Moreover, it is really close to my home, and usually I do not go there to shop for my Italian dish.

Pricing wise it may be more reasonable to tourists that is only visiting once or twice, but overall I think it is a little bit too much compare to other local Italian places that sell those products also. On the other hand, the history that was explain by one of the owner was very informative, and we all might feel that we are there while the man was telling his story. However, I did not felt I was welcome into the place at all, and it is more like you can help yourself. The smell and aroma was really intriguing similar to being in Italy.

We were not offered to get to taste, and that was very disappointing. Will I go back? …No, not a chance.

Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream is located at 2 Rivington Street at L.E.S (Lower East Side). It is a new American ice cream parlor and their focus is serving texture-driven small batches of ice cream that has a renewed attention to flavor and palate. The owner and founder of this ice cream parlor is Nicholas Morgenstern.

The three flavors that we tried during our culinary tourism tour was durian banana, salted chocolate, and black current. My favorite was the durian. Growing up, I ate durian so I am used to the taste and the smell. When you take a bite of the durian banana, you first taste the durian because it was very overwhelming and the after taste was banana. After a while of eating the durian banana, I didn’t taste the banana anymore and all I tasted was durian. The ice cream was soft and creamy. Next flavor was salted chocolate. I don’t like chocolate ice cream and to try it salted did not help me like it one bit. It was weird and it did not taste like chocolate. I liked the black current second; because once you take a bit of it, it was sour. I couldn’t taste the flavor really, because all I tasted was a sourness.

I’ve never been to Morgenstern’s and I’m glad we got to experience this place during our tour. I hope to return when I am around the LES area and try more of their “exotic” flavors.

During our tour around in Chelsea Market, Erik and I came across an interesting shop called “Seed + Mill.” Behind the glass were chunks of cake made out of grinded sesame seed called “Tahini.” Something I was not familiar with.

Tahini is a nutty, creamy paste made out of sesame seeds. It has a texture of powdery peanut butter. Tahini is a pastry paste used in the Middle Eastern. Countries in the Middle Eastern use this ingredient to prepare hummus served with pita bread. Behind the glass window were a couple of different flavored Tahini cakes. I tried a sample of cranberry tahini, pistachio but my favorite was the sea salt chocolate. The texture and taste of the Tahini, kind of reminded of a candy we have back in Mexico called Mazapan. The Mazapan is a soft powdery candy made out of almond paste and sugar but there is only one flavor to it. Next time, I return to Chelsea Market, I am bring back with me a pound of sea salt chocolate tahini.

One place that caught me and Christley attention was the Manhattan Fruit Exchange. It is packed with tons of incredible ingredients that you might not find and regular supermarket. These items that we find were phenomenal crazy!

Like cardone, which is also called the artichoke thistle, and who know it is part of artichoke family?! Ugly Fruit? Look more like rotten that no one will want to buy for $2! Kiwano Melon which is cross between cucumber, zucchini, and kiwifruit, in addition, it tastes more like a banana after it is ripen. Buddahand is actually a distinct fruit in the citron family. Its skin can be use for candy in dessert. Passion fruit I use it to make bubble tea majority of the time because of the awesome smell it gives out, but the actual fruit itself is cute-small yet UGLY! Pepino melon in Spanish mean sweet cucumber, but in a eggplant family. Yes, WOW!

Great experience throughout the Chelsea Market tour!

The Chelsea Markets, like much of NYC, was originally a manufacturing plant; specifically for Nabisco.  As rent in the city went up, manufacturing moved to cheaper locations and then the cities vices such as prostitution and drugs moved in.  The area around the markets had quite a bad reputation, so the city decided to clean it up.  Vendors and wholesale moved in, using the accessibility of the High Line to move products along the edge of the city.  Once the High Line was closed, the markets slowed down.  After the High Line’s restoration was finished and opened to the public, it became a destination making business boom for Chelsea Markets.  Mo0re and more food places opened as well as manufactured there, until recently when production was moved elsewhere.  Now Chelsea Markets is more of a higher end food court, toting artisanal as well as imported products for foodies of all kinds.  Chelsea Markets is open from 7AM until 9PM.  The A,C, and E trains run near from the 14th Street and 8th Ave stop.

Beechers is a Seattle-based cheese company with a large, impressive outpost just a few blocks north of Union Square.  The main feature of the store is a giant, glassed-in cheese making facility (they make their cheese on site) where you can see the whole process.  They offer tastes of their cheese.  It’s pretty good, in a cheddar cheese sort of way.  The store also has a cafeteria type counter with all sorts of cheesy foods including a very good mac and cheese.  Downstairs there’s a full-service restaurant.  The store also sells a wide range of American-only artisanal cheeses.  Though the variety is pretty good, they don’t seem to give these cheeses quite the love  more obsessive cheese stores like Bedford Cheese or Murray’s give their cheeses.