Eastern Market Food Tour Reviews

Adam was lively, informative, and super helpful. We had a great time learning a little of the history of DC and Eastern Market and absolutely loved the food

A lot of food tastings in a very short time.

If you're looking for a food tour primarily to eat amazing food then this probably isnt for you. In fact, the highlight in that regard was probably the glorified spicy hot dog (I forget what they call it) that is some kind of local specialty. The tour guide, Elise i believe her name was, was fantastic. Very energetic and friendly and knowledgeable too. In fact, my girlfriend and I who had signed up for the tour with the idea that we'd be enjoying fantastic local food, ended up enjoying hearing about the history of the eastern market area much more than the food which as I said left alot to be desired. Keep in mind, when I say the Eastern Market, we're talking about one building, NOT a whole region of the city as my girlfriend and I thought. All in all, I'd say that it's worth the 25 bucks and it's a pretty good 2 hour diversion.

I went on the Eastern Market tour with Elise. She has wonderful energy and knows a lot about the history of the market and the vendors. The food selections were great. A standout was getting to taste the original D.C. Half Smoke recipe!! I will be taking part in additional tours in the future.

Very interesting tour, whether you are a foodie or not. Highly recommend!

Will be booking a future group.

The food was absolutely delicious; the host was well informed, and prepared; and you left feeling happy and full.

What a fun group activity for a bunch of friends! The food is served family-style, so I would definitely recommend doing this with people you know. Our group was limited to 6 people, so it was the perfect afternoon outing for some great girlfriends! Our guide even through in some history along with her knowledge of the food. I had been to Eastern Market before, but always on a mission for a specific thing, so this was definitely a cool way to visit the market. Great for new residents, or someone who's been here for years and looking for a new spin on an old spot.

I had a good time and was thankful that there were gluten free options. My mother had fun too.

The tour was very interesting. The guide was great, with helpful descriptions of DC history as well as the food and market. I could have used smaller portions of more of a variety of food. For example, a whole half-smoke wasn't really necessary, and my friend didn't like it at all. I would have rather had a smaller piece and more variety.

Our guide met us precisely where were supposed to and was enthusiastic from the get-go. She was very knowledgeable and friendly. We enjoyed the food a lot and were very interested to find out the history of the market. The only minor complaint that we had was that the price was slightly too high for the experience. There was enough food for a meal, but it wasn't a $30 meal. We understand that we're paying for the service as well and we don't regret the experience, it's just that it was a little different than we were expecting. I would still recommend any of these tours to people visiting the capital. Thank you.

While the guide was amazing, there just isn't any real reason to spend $50.00 bucks per person for a 1.5 hour tour of a very small DC indoor market. 6 tastes? do the math - thats like 7 dollars a taste. I'm sure the guide dont make much You could taste a LOT of things there for far less money and in far less time. Additionally, the Saturday tour ended NEAR CLOSING TIME. I want to browse so it would cut it down if i decided to buy sonethin. So if you really wanted to buy anything, you had to run like hell and catch the vendors to get fruit. Great guide, no reason for the tour. And lets be real --- that market is no better than a Safeway, and I would rather save time and money and take advantage of our new 20th century ideas like a supermarket than some dilapidated old place ---'Nuff said.

Fun and quick tour around the Market. Good variety of eats around lots of history. Good value. Great to see a neighborhood, different from the usual tourist attractions. Elise was a well informed and perky tour guide.

It was a wonderful opportunity to taste foods that I would have never ordered as a full meal. Loved everything. The whole experience was outstanding. I would absolutely recommend the tour.

The tour exceeded our expectations. The food was delicious, our guide Elyse was wonderful and we were all happy and full by the end. I have already recommend the tour to friends and am excited to try the other food tours in the area.

Dont eat lunch before - enough amazing food to last for dinner.

Great tour -

Really enjoyed our Metro Food Tour at the Eastern Market. We were on vacation in the DC area, and wanted to experience some of the local flavor. Our tour guide was very informative, made us feel quite comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings, and handled our questions without missing a beat. Roaming around the market was interesting and fun, and all of the food samples that we tried were tasty and satisfying. This food tour is different from some others, in that you don't do a lot of walking since you are only exploring the one location. This suited us at the end of a long day of touring DC. For those who are expecting to visit restaurants and sample their fares, consider one of the other Metro food tours. Would definitely recommend this experience.

Our lovely tour guide Elsie was enthusiastic and very well informed. The tour brings you surprisingly closer to the people who make the Eastern Market a neighborhood and community. More food than I could eat and quality of which exceed my expectations from a public market. Quality of food here exceeds many places in the DC area. Definitely a place youÕll come back to for the food.

A group of 6 of us went on a Friday night. It was a lot of fun! You totally get more than enough food, that is for sure! Half of our group was visiting from out of town and had been to other markets (in Philly, NYC, Boston, etc) and they really enjoyed the trip.

I would actually recommend this for a date - it is a great way to start your evening and you can always go grab a drink or two afterwards and have plenty to talk about.

The Eastern Market tour was a fantastic introduction to a magnificent space. The guide was superb -- gracious, articulate, hospitable. My thanks to all the vendors in the market who offered such a magnificent array of tastes and stories of our evening of delights!

Our tour guide was enthusiastic, genuine, knowledgeable and friendly! The food was delicious and we learned about not only the merchants but also the history of the market and merchants.

I love Eastern Market and was happy to go when it wasn't slammed with customers. It was nice to get to talk to some of the vendors and hear their stories and what they had to say. And I had never had cucumber kimchi before and it was delicious!

I recently participated in the Eastern Market Food Tour and really enjoyed it. The food was great, and it was interesting to interact with the vendors. The guide was knowledgable and made a group of total strangers feel comfortable being together.

Although I have been to Eastern Market before, I never really knew all the history and what makes it so special. What a neat way to spend an afternoon!

Visiting so many vendors under one roof made this an excellent tour. Various foods complemented the unique atmosphere. The guide was excellent and answered all my questions.

My daughter (22 years old) and I went on this Eastern Market tour after doing wonderful food tours in New York & Chicago. This one was a serious disappointment. Now I have to start out by saying that our guide Sara was great and did the best she could with what she had. It wasn't her that was the problem. It is that Eastern Market at 5:30 at night has VERY little to offer. It is mostly raw meats and vegetable stands, etc. Yes, there were foods to taste, but they were scarce and odd. We love to try new things...but one of the things was a hot dog and the other was a Empanada that was quite good, but that was about it! The tour gives very little info about the neighborhood and there just isn't enough to go on. This is a shame because I think if you restructured the tour and added a few neighborhood stops it would change the whole thing. You can go to Eastern Market yourself and do what we did. It just was a huge disappointment. I think you need to rethink this one. I would definitely not recommend it to anybody. I imagine the Capitol Hill tour is much better if you can take the time. One more thing. It is great to have a shorter tour. One and a half to two hours is great...but just make it worth our while.

Jen was knowledgeable and friendly. The tour not only included food but also great history about the eastern market. I would highly recommend the tour to anyone local or visiting the area.

Def enjoyed our tour !! Didn't expect to get full so quickly!

We had a great time and the tour guide was very knowledgeable!

The guide was very knowledgable and friendly. We had a blast!

My husband and I did the tour in Eastern Market. The guide was friendly and informative and the food we ate was really good. We thought it was a walking tour; however, the only walking we did was from the Metro Station to the market. As I previously stated, the food was good, but most of the items were "sample size"; therefore, we believed the price wasn't worth what we received.

We decided to take this tour after having toured NYC's Greenwich Village on a walking food tour a few weeks ago, we were not disappointed! Leah was an enthusiastic guide and everything we sampled was delicious. We all agreed that we never would have bothered to explore the Eastern Market if we weren't taking the tour, and we returned to the Eastern Market to stock up on food to bring back to NY with us. You should take this tour for the amazing empanadas alone!

The food was amazingly delicious and you get good bang for your buck. The information provided to you is actually worth listening to and relevant to what you are doing there. The tour guides were friendly and its an activity that is different from the norm in DC. It allows you to get a different perspective and try something new. It opens you up to places you may not have ventured to before and lets you in on the types of places you want to find but don't always.

High recommend this food tour. Our guide was very knowledgable and personable. Very generous amounts of food! Plan for left overs. The Eastern Market tour is amazing!!!

Good event although slightly overpriced. I liked trying the new foods but it was only an hour long and I don't feel like I learned as much as I would've liked. But still a good event

Awesome! Sarah's a great guide as always. I'm glad I went. The best part of the tour isn't the food, ironically. The good food is already a given. It's the friendly tour guide, the instant camaraderie with the group, and even the simple interactions of the restaurant staff and servers with the group. It's a very comforting atmosphere for a situation that is inherently being with strangers, trying new things, and having a unique experience. Considering I went alone as a treat for myself, it was still highly enjoyable b/c I made friends there!

Going into it I did know what to expect. From my understanding there was food involved and I was very happy about that. Our tour guide was great Sarah Parker. She did an extrodianry job telling us about the history of the area and of Eastern Market. The food was excellent and I strongley recommend it to others.

An interesting and fun tour. Well worth the cost.

Guide did an exccellent job and really made the tour enjoyable. Expectations were that we would go thru the market and try different items that were unique to the market.

Felt the taste experiences provided were not worth the price. Believe the tour would be better served to cut the price have the guide provide same information & then folks could walk thru and purchase items they wanted to eat or after the tour have reservations at a local restaurant set up. Then all the vendors could talk to us and take care of their people. But this is new so iI sure it will get better. We all had to find a place to have a meal as the market was closing within 10 mins so there wasn't much time to shop after the tour.

Our guide Sara was not only very friendly and outgoing; but, she was well informed on the history as well as current events in the area. She really made this experience.

Sara took the time to give us the history not only of the market itself but the individual vendors...it was apparent that she had taken the time to get to know the individuals business owners and had developed a unique relationship with them.

We had not taken a "foodie" tour before, this was a very interesting area of D.C. that we probably would not have found or learned about if it weren't for this tour. We will definitely go back to this area of D.C. again because of our experience on the tour.

Debra

Definitely recommend

We learned the history of the Eastern Market, and enjoyed some great food. I thought I was not going to get enough to eat but by the end of the tour I was very satisfied!

Planning to try one of the other tours from the company.

Enjoyed the tour and history but definitely would not recommend given the cost of $40. Plus I tipped the guide $10 on top. I am fairly easy to please but the amount of food was miniscule. I did not expect a dinner but really the samples were paltry. I am not a big eater but I did have to cook dinner that night contrary to what the tour description said.

We really enjoyed the tour and the enthusiasm of our guide but for the money I would have thought there would be more food involved. In total we only sampled Kimche cabbage, dates, turkey jerky, half a sausage, and 1/3 of an apple danish. All the food was good, but for the $80 dollars we spent my son and I could have eaten at a restaurant and had drinks. The experience was fun though.

Great guide, she was concerned about pleasing the group with the food/information.

Guide should be provided with a way to hold food while talking, a wheeled cart, etc. It was awkward for her/us to sample food/juggle food while standing.

A bit expensive for the food sampled, would like to see the cost lowered.

This was a great tour. The food was fantastic and you got to try several different types of food.