If you've been reading In Search Of for a while, you probably have noticed that I'm really into cultural exchange, trying new foods, and the sharing culture that comes with travel (e.g., Airbnb, cooking classes, and more). So of course, when I had the opportunity to collaborate with BonAppetour and Trip101 during my recent trip to The Netherlands, I jumped at the idea. Looking at dates and times that worked for us as a family (late dinners don't often work with a toddler), I selected a walking tour given by an artist with a light lunch at her house.

A bit about BonAppetour

BonAppetour is a service that connects friendly hosts in countries around the world with food-loving travelers. Just like using Airbnb, you can search hosts and meals in different cities and make a reservation for an available meal. I found that prices are reasonable (some might be the same price as a meal in the restaurant, while others only slightly more expensive than a meal in a restaurant) and there are options for everyone.

Most experiences consist of meals at a local's home, walking tours with some element of food, cooking classes, or more. BonAppetour believes that connecting travelers with locals creates lasting memories and allows for cultural exchange, which is ever so important in this day and age. I completely agree with BonAppetour's mission!

The tour

 

For me, the highlight of the tour was being introduced to some of the gorgeous, but less crowded streets in Amsterdam. We started the tour at Museum Square and strolled down (I think) Van Breestraat, which had cool art shops and antique stores. My favorite bit was walking along the streets that are collectively called the Nine Streets (three parallel streets with cute shops and cafes). Along one of these streets, we popped into a cafe for a coffee and delicious piece of lemon cake. We also walked along a portion of the Red Light District and China Town, and saw the oldest church in Amsterdam. 

Then we walked, and walked, and walked to a recently built section of the city to our tour guide's flat. This isn't a part of the city that we would have explored on our own, so it was neat to see it and hear about the other artists living there. As I mentioned above, our tour guide is an artist, so she briefly talked about her art while she prepared a simple lunch of meat and cheese on white bread. I did like seeing our tour guide's art and I liked trying the typical Dutch lunch.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend taking a tour with our guide. She walked so quickly that we could hardly keep up and I had to abandon taking photos entirely after a while (several of the photos in this post are from the following day when J and I slowly walked these streets). I also would have liked for our tour guide to have told us more about the streets we were walking on and the lunch that she made. However, this was only our tour guide's first month of giving tours, so perhaps she will improve with time. Despite this not great tour, I would absolutely try a BonAppetour experience again, although I would read reviews.

Looking for more like this? Check out the posts below:

Eating at a local's home in Madrid
Eating at a local's home in Athens
Licorice tour in Copenhagen

Have you enjoyed dinner in a local's home? Are there any similar experiences that you'd recommend? 

*This post was created in collaboration with BonAppetour and Trip101. I received a free tour in exchange for this review, but as always, opinions are my own.

I'm linking up with Wanderful Wednesday.

J and I loved our meal and evening with BookALokal in Athens, so of course we wanted to try it again in another city. Madrid seemed like the perfect city to try another delicious eating experience with BookALokal. After having a quick look over their website, I found the three course lunch menu with Marta and promptly booked it.

Marta quickly responded to our booking request and we were scheduled our lunch for noon on Friday. We left our AirBnB reasonably early that day and strolled by Retiro Park and to Marta's neighborhood.

Upon arrival, we texted Marta and she promptly let us up to her flat. We were warmly welcomed into the flat and Marta was friendly and kind from the beginning. Her youngest son even played with Baby ISO while we ate.

Marta started us off with some delicious cheese, cured ham, and other traditional snacks (such as fried pork rinds). We were then offered wine or beer, and were invited to learn about the cocido madrilleno (a hearty dish of chickpeas with meat, vegetables, and broth) and see the ingredients before the dish was assembled. The cocido madrilleno was really delicious, and I especially loved the rich, meaty-flavored broth. I also enjoyed that you could pick and choose whatever pieces of the meal you wanted to eat and mix it all together to create your own unique dish according to your taste. Of course, I tried it all, and it was all delicious! For dessert, we tried Spanish torrijas, which somewhat similar to French toast (but even more decadent!). Spanish torrijas is a special dessert that is eaten all over Spain during Easter. I loved this dessert! If you like French toast, you should try Spainish torrijas!

Marta's lunch was the highlight of our Madrid trip for me. We really had an enjoyable several hours eating with Marta and learning a bit about Madrid from a Madrid local. If you happen to visit Madrid, I'd highly recommend booking a meal (or tour of her olive farm) with Marta via BookALokal.


Have you tried BookALokal? Have you eaten Spainsh torrijas before?

I was looking for a cool experience to have in Athens and stumbled upon the website BookALokal. The cool experience I found came in the form of dinner at a local's house. In my opinion, home cooked meals are often 100 times more delicious than what you'll find at many restaurants. So, when I saw the option of having a home cooked meal at Marina's apartment in the center of Athens I jumped at it.

Marina picked us up directly at the subway stop and we walked the short walk together to her apartment. Upon arrival, she introduced us to her boyfriend, ushered us into the dinning room, and popped a glass of local white wine in J's hand. She then left us to chat away with her boyfriend while she putting the finishing touches on the appetizer - a zucchini and feta pie. Despite my many years eating and cooking Greek food, I'd never had a zucchini and feta pie and wow - what I had been missing! It was delicious. After more chatting, more wine, and the clattering of forks on our plates out came the next dish - lamb with leafy vegetables and an egg lemon sauce. Yum! I love lamb. While we were eating Marina, her boyfriend, and their friend who came to join us chatted about the special type of lamb and leafy vegetables they had purchased from the farmers market. Clearly, a lot of thought had gone into the choice of ingredients.

The highlight of the meal was warm halva with nuts, honey, jam, and dried fruit. This was easily the best halva I've ever eaten. It was perfectly sweetened and I'm just dying to try to make it myself at home.

Overall, I would rate this experience a 5/5. Marina, her boyfriend, and her friend were wonderful hosts, the food was incredible, and using BookALokal opened up a cool new option for our travels. I'd highly suggest checking out BookALokal to see if they have an experience near you. Also, if you happen to be in Athens, book a meal with Marina!

This post  was not sponsored.

Ever since my wonderful experience taking a cooking class in Beijing, I have been interesting in taking cooking classes or food tours everywhere we visit. When I saw that foodtours.eu offered a licorice tour I knew that was the right choice for me. I love licorice and I thought this tour would be a perfect way to learn about the special Danish licorice.

On the day of the tour we met with Maria, our tour guide, and a Danish-International family who joined us on the tour. I started chatting with Maria and she told me about the food tours they currently offer and the upcoming Christmas tour. Both sounded amazing, but I really am interested in the Christmas Tour! It sounded incredible.

To really enjoy the licorice tour it would of course be best to like black licorice. It certainly isn't a flavor for everyone. I love black licorice, but J isn't so fond of the flavor. Despite this, we both really enjoyed the tour and thought that the length (2 hours) was perfect.

The tour began in Torvehallerne and started with a stick of raw licorice root, followed by powdered licorice root. We then tasted an amazing licorice flavored meringue that even J enjoyed. We then headed to Somod Bolcher, which is the official candy store for the King and Queen. I would have never found this store myself, so I'm really happy that we were taken there! After munching on their amazing salty licorice hard candies we headed back to Torvehallerne for more!

In Torvehallerne we ate an amazing licorice chocolate from Summerbird Chocolates. The previous day I had tried one of their licorice chocolates and they are truly wonderful. We then headed to Axoco for almonds covered with chocolate dusted with different flavored licorice. Wow those were strong!

Other highlights of the tour were licorice gelato, licorice beer, sausage with fennel, licorice tea, and licorice caramels. My favorite though, was the licorice mustard that we ate on a light cracker. It was so delicious!

I absolutely loved this tour. Maria, our guide, was knowledgable about all things licorice and the food we tasted was incredible. I loved the amazing options of licorice and thought that the salty licorice was amazing. I came home with a bag full of salty licorice from the recommendations from this tour!

The licorice food tour was 2 hours long and costs 300 DKK. Reservations can be made at foodtours.eu

*This tour was sponsored by foodtours.eu; however, opinions as always are my own. I truly love licorice that much.

I'm linking up with Casey for Fresh Faced Friday.


Have you taken a tour with foodtours.eu before? Do you like licorice?