Columbus Food Adventures

Bethia invited me to join her for the tour of Short North today.

I had never been on a food tour before, and did not know quite what to expect. All I knew was that I needed to show up hungry!

Bethia runs tours under her company, Columbus Food Adventures, which she founded a few months ago. Her Short North tour is a walking tour of the restaurants and interesting sites of the area. She started it all, appropriately, at the North Market. We had 7 people in the group, and we were all ready and hungry for the tour. We started inside the North Market where Bethia showed us a few places that sell wonderful local products: Bluecreek Farm, the Greener Grocer, among others.

We then headed to Knead, where I had the best grilled cheese sandwich of my life (made with beer bread!).

They try to use local products from all over Ohio as you can see on the map here.

Next was Le Chocoholique, a beautifully presented chocolatier with chocolates from all over the country.

After tasting delicious morsels of goodness, we headed to the bakery where all the bread for Tasi and Rigsby's are made (they do not sell their products here, but you can get them at Tasi Cafe). The baker spent a few minutes explaining the process and their products. And of course we got taste some bread!

Of course where else would we go after seeing the bread being made, but to Tasi itself...



We were served different kinds of bread, and some mac-and-cheese that is way more sophisticated than the kind I make for my children at home (it included some bacon, if you were interested!)!


And to round things up, we stopped at Rigsby's where the ambiance matched the food on the plates they served. This salad was very seasonally appropriate with locally grown heirloom tomatoes and watermelon, topped with goat cheese and fresh herbs.


Last, but not least (although I had no more room in my tummy), was Jeni's ice cream (which will deserve its own blog post here later).

We were all treated to three different flavors...and boy, were there options to choose from?! I enjoyed watching my new friends enjoying their Jeni's, while I purchased some (Mango Lassi Frozen Yogurt) to take home.


I was not only full and happy leaving the tour, I also felt much more knowledgeable about the Short North, a bit of its history, and its reincarnation to become one of Columbus' best spots for businesses, the arts, and some very fine dining and wandering. Needless to say, I highly recommend taking a tour with Columbus Food Adventures. Just remember to show up hungry!