Our Tour Leaders take other food tours when they’re out in the wild! Here’s Adam’s recap of his recent experience in Los Angeles, California.

What better way to explore LA food than on a tour with Sidewalk Food Tours!

Rocky Mountain Food Tours’ very own guide, Adam, recently took a road trip through Colorado, Mesa Verde National Park, and Las Vegas on his way to the West Coast where he ended up in Los Angeles. There he enjoyed an afternoon with Sidewalk Food Tours, a culinary experience company that operates in multiple major cities across the United States.

Read on to learn more about Adam’s amazing food tour in the City of Angels in his own words!

Stop 1: Pitchoun! Bakery

We met our tour guide, Chris, outside Pitchoun!, a bustling French bakery located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Chris is an LA native with a huge amount of knowledge about the city. Joining our tour group were a woman and her son visiting from Columbia and a family of six also from Colorado. Inside the bakery were long cases filled with cakes, cookies, and a multitude of other sugary delights. We enjoyed a flaky almond croissant that melted in our mouths. Here we learned that croissants originated from Austria rather than France!

While we ate, our tour guide provided a brief history about the founding of Los Angeles. Spanish missionaries first settled there in the 1800s. As an LA native, Chris’ family has been here so long they even have a deed from the King of Spain dating back to this era! During the early 1900s, one-third of the world’s oil came from California, in direct contrast to its current image as one of the greenest states in the country. Hollywood was born in the early 20th century when filmmakers shifted movie productions from New York City to LA, where year-round sunshine and little rain made it much easier to make movies no matter the time of year.

Stop 2: Sticky Rice at Grand Central Market

Our next destination was Grand Central Market, a culinary mecca that hosts more than 30 food vendors. Six of those have become franchises, including the hilariously named Egg Slut. We followed Chris through bustling crowds and underneath bright neon signs on our way to Sticky Rice, a Thai street food stand that was opened to honor the owner’s parents. We sampled a duo of pork and chicken skewers and then sat outside in view of the famous Angel Flight Railway. The skewers were served with a peanut dipping sauce, sticky rice (of course), and some crisp pickles. I happily would have tried every vendor at Grand Central Market if we had time! I still want to know what was so slutty about those eggs…

Stop 3: Macheroni Republic

The middle stop of our tour was Macheroni Republic, a beautiful Italian restaurant where the pasta is made in-house daily using organic grains. Chris even showed us the building where the pasta was made. The windows revealed cascading noodles of various sizes, shapes, and colors. We sat on the patio amongst lush greenery, and I felt like a celebrity hiding from the paparazzi in such a posh locale. We were served pumpkin ravioli with a three-cheese truffle sauce, and this was by far my favorite item of the entire tour. The pasta was light and pillowy, and I scraped every morsel of sauce from the plate to make sure nothing was wasted. 

Detours: The Biltmore Los Angeles and Bradbury Building

Throughout the tour, we took several detours to view beautiful buildings that harkened back to the Golden Age of Hollywood. We first explored the Biltmore Los Angeles, a historic hotel named after the Biltmore House in my hometown of Asheville, NC. When it opened in 1923, it was the country’s largest hotel west of Chicago, and it was also the site where film studio executives first conceived the Academy Awards. From 1931 – 1942, the hotel’s luxurious ballroom hosted the Oscars multiple times, and Chris even took us to a special hallway with photos of many famous stars who frequented the hotel during this era.

We later visited the Bradbury Building, one of the most iconic architectural wonders in the entire city. With neatly packed staircases and high glass ceilings, the space looks like an M.C. Escher sketch come to life, and the building was honored as a National Historic Landmark in 1977. It has been featured in multiple films and TV shows, perhaps most famously in the sci-fi classic Blade Runner. The Bradbury is still a working office building and has housed many prominent companies throughout the years, including Marvel Comics!

Stop 4: Guisados

We ventured next to Guisados, which was started as a taco truck by a father and son team in 2005. Guisados now has multiple locations throughout Southern California and is often voted as one of the top 10 taco spots in LA. We were offered our choice of a chicken, steak, or veggie taco, and we watched tortillas being made from scratch as we waited for our food. I opted for the chicken taco and was surprised that it was smothered in mole, something you don’t often see as a taco topping here in Colorado. The taco also featured dried chile, queso fresco, red onion, and sour cream. The tortilla was chewy and bouncy without being dense, and the mole had layers of rich flavor. I also ordered a limón agua fresca that was a refreshing treat on a hot day filled with lots of walking.

Stop 5: Donut Friend

Our last stop was Donut Friend, a donut and ice cream shop with several LA locations. The shop is sparsely designed with black and white decor, allowing the rows and rows of vibrantly colored donuts to serve as the main aesthetic focal point. It was incredibly difficult to choose which donut I wanted, but ultimately settled on the X-Ray Speeculos, which featured cookie butter inside a traditional yeast-raised donut, topped with chocolate glaze, sea salt, and a vanilla drizzle.

The other guests were shocked to learn that everything made at Donut Friend is vegan, though I admit I cheated a little and learned about Donut Friend’s plant-based menu before taking the tour. The X-Ray was truly one of the best donuts I’ve ever had, and it proves that you don’t need eggs, butter, or milk to taste delicious!

Final Thoughts

I was thoroughly impressed by my experience with Sidewalk Food Tours, and it was one of the highlights of my entire road trip. Chris, who has worked with the company since 2019, was an excellent guide full of energy and fun facts, and I checked out some of his other restaurant and shopping recommendations before my vacation was over. The variety of food offered on the tour was excellent in both taste and value, and I learned so much about the city that I never knew before. I especially loved that we began and ended the tour with something sweet–you can never have enough dessert, right?

Definitely check out Sidewalk Food Tours, whether you’re in LA, New Orleans, Miami, or one of the many other cities where they offer excursions!

Cheers, Adam at Rocky Mountain Food Tours

(So, what’s a food tour, anyway…?)

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