Walking tours are a great, mostly guilt-free way to get a flavor of a place and its food. Two weeks ago, during BlogHer Food, my colleague Carmen and I took our lunch break on a walking tour of South Beach, and yesterday Douglas and I experienced some of the best chocolate New York’s SOHO neighborhood has to offer.

Here’s the report!

Food Tours of Miami  Four stops. We started with gelato at the meeting point, and then moved to a Haitian restaurant, Tap Tap, followed by a walk down the “main drag” of  South Beach and some excellent examples of Art Deco architecture, a brief stop at a café, and then the pièce de la resistance, French bistro Otentic. The first three stops were truly tastings, but the final stop was more robust, with 3 courses: a charcuterie plate, a very tasty quiche and desserts. No one left hungry!

A highlight of Tap Tap was the wall murals throughout the restaurant. Unfortunately, WordPress is not cooperating with me this morning and I cannot get any of these photos to upload properly, so you’ll have to trust me. If you are in the area, check it out for yourself.

Important: if you have any dietary restrictions, including if you do not drink alcoholic beverages, make sure you let them know in advance. At Tap Tap, one of the tastings was a Mojito, and they weren’t prepared for as many non-drinkers as were on our tour, so a few of us missed out. No big deal really, but easily fixed if you let them know in advance.

Chocolate Walking Tour of New York. Also four stops. We started with iced Aztec chocolate and a signature ganache at MarieBelle on Broome Street.

Stop number two, Vosges, featured a Naga Truffle — chocolate, curry and coconut, which was amazingly tasty. We purchased a sampling of small size bars, including bacon, and my favorite, chocolate and chili peppers!

Next up was Kee’s on Thompson Street, where the included sample was a to-die-for Crème Brûlée chocolate. Douglas also tried one of their Blueberry macaroons and I had a Sesame Chili Chocolate.

We wrapped up at Jacques Torres on Hudson at King Street, where we could choose our own flavor of bon bon, and also sampled hot chocolate and their signature chocolate chip cookies. I continued my search for the best combination of spice and chocolate with Wicked Fun:

 

Douglas went for a raspberry-filled one, and it was so good, he purchased an additional three to snack on!

I found both tours through Groupon, and the prices we paid were between 1/3 to 1/2 of the advertised price, so I highly recommend checking out the various deal sites and apps  (Groupon, Living Social, Amazon, Viator) before booking.