Desert Tasty Tours

This was a great tour! Absolutely worth the money. Lovely restaurants to taste at, good information from the guide. We did ElPaseo, but will probably do Palm Springs soon. Food was great!
We loved it!

On a whim, my girlfriend and I decided to go on a food tour offered in Palm Desert while we were in town. So, we purchased spots on the tour the night before it, which was fairly easy.
We went to 6 places: Wilma & Frieda’s, Pacifica, Ristorante Mamma Gina, Savory Spice Shop, Wolfgang Puck’s, and Clementine’s.
All the while, we learned bits and pieces about Palm Desert and Palm Springs. Besides the food and products, we usually look forward to learning about the area from someone who is considered a local.
It’s very tempting to give 5 stars. The feeling is there. However, here is why I’m giving 4 stars, which is still a good thing.
1) Arnie, our guide, was great. He was funny, engaging, and absolutely facilitated interaction, participation, interest, and enjoyment. What a jolly man. He is also a customer of the places he shows us, which tells us that he’s not just a paid endorser.
2) It was strange that the first thing we tasted that morning of the tour was a dessert. A rich chocolate brownie pastry. We would have liked it at the end of our tour rather than the very beginning.
3) Pacifica had a very good whitefish seafood cocktail.
4) Unfortunately, Savory Spice Shop was the forgettable stop of the tour. The place isn’t bad. It’s actually pretty good. However, we weren’t exactly wow’d by it. I think one thing I learned was that the term ‘curry’ refers to a mix of flavors, which is why there are so many kinds of it across different cultural cuisines.
5) Towards the end, everybody was worn out from all the food. We didn’t even remember (or we simply weren’t told) what our last tasting was. It was as if we were already satisfied from the first 5 places, and that 6^th place where we ended the tour wasn’t actually necessary.
I’ve been to 3 other food tours before this, and I’ll go ahead and say this was one of the better ones. I haven’t tried the Palm Springs one, but I’m guessing it’s pretty good like this one in Palm Desert.
Tips before your tour:
— Come hungry. There is plenty of food. Don’t do yourself the injustice by eating beforehand.
— Bring cash to tip your guide at the end of the tour.
— Dress comfortably. Since we went recently (December), it was pretty cold. Other times might be much warmer.
— If you’ve never tried this food, you’re in for a treat. If you have, you can expand on the experience with what they offer.
— Be on time. They’ll still wait for you, but you don’t want to KEEP them waiting.
Tips during your tour:
— Don’t be embarrassed to take some food with you. Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant served more for us than we could muster. In hindsight, I wish we took some of that lox pizza with us. It was an entire pizza!
— Ask questions, but don’t overwhelm the tour. Sometimes, there will be some people who are overwhelmingly chatty. Thankfully, that wasn’t any of us in our tour.
Tips after your tour:
— Revisit some of these places if they seem interesting. I ended up having breakfast at Wilma & Frieda’s the next morning and loved it. Heck, we even saw Arnie again!
— Reflect on the tour. We compared it with the other tours we did. We also contemplated returning to certain places. Some were actually expensive, so we were glad we got a chance to taste some dishes from there.
The tour is a pretty good time. Try it out!

If you want to indulge in some of the best food, take in great scenery and learn about the local community, this is an incredible tour to take, let alone experience! I took the Palm Springs Downtown tour and it was filled with delicious food that left everyone in attendance full and extremely happy — not to mention the take-​home gifts :) totally recommend this to anyone! Great for locals and visitors alike.

First off thanks to all the food tour vendors. As a concept it’s a great way to get introduced to a city or area and find a bunch of great food!
Our tour of El Paseo in Palm Desert was fantastic. Mary was very personable and loves her city. The food was all great, our only regret was not having done the tour earlier in our stay to make it back to more of the locations. Thank you.

Last week we took the Desert Tasty Tour as our team Christmas Celebration and we were not disappointed! The food was fantastic with such a great variety. Mary, our guide was wonderful, she was so knowledgable about the area history and other fun facts about the area. I would highly recommend this tour to natives as well as visitors!

I took my first tour with Desert Tasty Tours last week and it was amazing. Our Tour Guide, Mary, is a fountain of information about the Palm Springs area and was very knowledgeable about the Palm Springs history.
We had 7 Tasting Stops during the Tour: Kaiser Grille, Village Pub, Tutti Fruitti, Olive A’Sudden, Brandini Toffee, Bill’s Pizza & Lulu California Bistro. By the time we finished the 3 hour tour we had plenty to eat and a lot of fun facts about Palm Springs. This tour is definitely worth taking when you are in Palm Springs!

My two sisters and I took our Mom to Palm Springs for Mothers Day weekend and Kristy’s tour was one of the highlights of our stay. The restaurants were fantastic. The pacing was perfect — it was a great tour. Highly recommend.

We had a great time with kristy. She introduced us to a variety of foods that were all VERY good. The tour part was also interesting in that we learned a lot about the area, the local food, and the people. I would highly recommend this as a fun activity if you’re in the area. My 15 yo and 12 yo even enjoyed it.

Friend from Connecticut came to visit and we did this as part of my birthday gift. We did the Palm Springs tour and we had a great time! Mary our tour guid was fantastic. Even though the weather was unseasonably cold we had such an excellent time. Not only did we try some great food but we learned about the history of Palm Springs. I was stuffed after our 6 stops. I would really recommend taking the tour and they even do an El Paseo tour which I will have to try out. This is well worth it!

A great experience. I highly recommend it. Our guide Kristy was very knowledgable and friendly. She lined up some great stops for us. It was my favorite part of our short stay in Palm Desert.

This was our first time doing a food tour. Kristy is the owner and was also our guide. We learned so much about Palm Desert and also about El Paseo. We stopped at 6 places and while we ate she told us about the business, owners, and the food we are eating. Kristy also offers a tour in Palm Springs, I look forward to experiencing next year. I highly recommend this tour!

My family and I have been coming to the Valley for years. We took the Palm Desert tour. Kristy showed us so many place to go and told about the history of the valley. We spent the rest of the trip going to places she told us about. I am going to make sure to tell the rest of my family to take both of her tours. We can’t wait to take the Palm Springs tour.

We came from Northern California for a mid-​winter vacation and took this tour on a whim. It was well worth the price. I only wish we’d taken it earlier in our stay so we could have taken full advantage of the places visited and the discount coupons offered by them. Kristy was friendly and very knowledgeable, providing insider’s insights into the dining scene and so much more. She accommodated my wife’s gluten-​free needs very well on the tour. The Palm Desert Tour of El Paseo was 6 restaurants /​shops and a leisurely 1.5 mile walk over about 2 hours, with pauses for the history of the area and full info on each stop. She takes great care of people.

We took the Palm Springs tour (new this year), and we loved it! As Palm Springs residents, we were surprised to find some great places that we didn’t know existed, and a couple we usually just walk on by. Our tour guide was friendly and knowledgeable (and amazingly remembered each of our names!), and did a great job walking us through some of the key points of interest downtown.
Might have to take the Palm Desert tour next…

I took the Palm Springs tour today. I can’t say enough about how much fun this tour is! Our tour guide Kristy is knowledgeable and friendly. She really sets the tone for an enjoyable experience. The food was delicious at each and every stop. I’m a local and we visited restaurants and places today that are hidden gems. I’ll definitely go back and visit the restaurants and the olive oil shop that we toured today.
The best part of the tour for me was Bill’s pizza. The crust on the pizza was amazing.
Definitely recommend this tour whether you are just visiting or a desert native.

Great tour, food was great, and Kristy is fabulous. I wish her the very best and know she will make this a huge success. I would highly recommend.

I have lived in the desert for 10 years and found the tour fun and learned a lot about the area. Of course the food was great and the bonus is finding a couple of gems that I now plan to frequent! What a fun way to spend a beautiful day in the desert outside walking in El Paseo! Nice job Kristy better than the reviews I read!