We saw this tour advertised in the local "The Eye" magazine that was in our hotel. While $65USD per person did seem like a lot, we expected the food on the tour to make it worth it. We asked Jane ahead of time if there would be good options for a vegetarian, and she simply said "there are many options."
Stop #1 - freshly fried street vendor potato chips with sauce - tasty, but she had all eight of us on the tour pass around two buckets of chips.
Stop #2 - yummy grilled chicken - again each person pulled a piece off of a communal plate. No vegetarian option. Good portion size.
Stop #3 - Family style Pazole soup with pork and chicken and various toppings. Vegetarian option was a very simple tostada with Oaxacan string cheese, cabbage and beans. Very cool restaurant making tyludas on site and with beautiful murals depicting stories of Oaxacan culture and history.
On the way to the next stop, we stopped by a traditional fruit market, meat vendor and chicken vendor and Jane explained how they operated. She also gave one small Dominco banana to each person. They were tasty.
Stop #4 - "Street food" tacos al pastor. Veggie option was a piece of charred cheese that got passed around the table and another very basic cheese, bean, and onion taco. This stop did include your choice of a cerveza, horchata, or hibiscus drink. The hibiscus drink was tasty but very sweet. Didn't try the horchata but it looked like the kind you can get at almost any Mexican restaurant in the US.
Stop #5 - Street vendor making Elote corn bowls with mayo and other sauces. Probably the tastiest thing served all night and a decent portion size, but it was one portion per couple, not per person. Jane also had us pick piece of Huitlacoche (corn fungus) and a piece of a relatively dry tamale, again everyone's fingers touching the same food, as we sat on a park bench in the town's central park.
Stop #6 - Ice cream - tasty - good portion size. As we finished our ice cream she had us pick a dried fish snack a cricket snack out of small containers. Again, each person's fingers in the same place. Several folks declined these options but I tried them both and they were OK. She also had us pick a roasted cacao bean in the same manner.
Stop #7 - Mezcal tasting - three very small pours. We both love Mezcal, but only one of the three we tried was good IMO. Beautiful painted bottles and lots of different types of Mezcal in the store.
Biggest thing that turned us off was the unsanitary nature of the tour. To be clear, none of the restaurants or vendors seemed unsanitary at all. We would have been happy to eat a meal at any one of these places. But the manner in which Jane insisted on communal group food touching plus reuse of dishes goes against basic rules of food hygiene.
First, Jane handed out bowls and spoons at the beginning of the tour and told everyone we needed to reuse them at each stop. While this is environmentally conscious, it is not acceptable from a health standpoint, and ridiculous for an expensive food tour.
This resulted in a group of adults led around with a half dirty bowl and spoon in the provided tote bag for the whole tour. The expectation was that each participant could run into restaurant bathrooms to rinse the cup and spoon out between uses. It seemed a lot to ask of these businesses, and not at all sanitary.
Also worth mentioning was the number of foods that were expected to be shared communally. We have no problem with family dining with proper utensils for dishing food onto ones own plates. But from the first stop, we were all expected to eat from the same plate, with all eight strangers sticking their fingers into the same foods over and over. The manner in which dishes were passed around from person to person had us hoping that no one in the group was sick. If food were served in this manner on a cruise ship, it would be fined and shut down immediately.
Jane is incredibly knowledgable about Oaxacan food and culture, having lived in a small village in the area for 30 years. But her tour style is more like leading an elementary school field trip rather than a fun evening with adult friends. Some people might enjoy this, but we found it to be off putting.
Summary - good way to see multiple food places and offerings in La Crucecita, but too expensive for the food offered and simply unsanitary. The total value of the food we ate was probably about $15 USD, less than $10 for the vegetarian options. Our recommendation would be that the tour guide provide compostable bowls and spoons/sporks at each stop, or allow the vendors to provide their own dishes and silverware. Also, don't have people communally pull food off of the same plate or out of the same container with their fingers. Last but not least, the vegetarian options weren't all that great, certainly not special, and not enough for a meal. Offer a reduced rate for vegetarians, please.
