Being a total foodie myself, I googled "food" and "Riga", when I was going to the latvian capital for a meeting. EAT Riga turned up, sounded great - and I booked a tour to the Central Market for me and my collegue.
Our guide was Marcus, an australian who by now has been living seven years in Riga, and it was great to be able to ask all sorts of questions....I mean, some questions like "can I drink the tapwater?", "are people very religious in Latvia?" or "what on eath is THAT?!!" might be offensive to a proud homie, but maybe not so to a foreigner.
So Marcus told us about everyday life, food, midsummerparties, christmas, gardening, tapwater etc. It was GREAT.
We walked through three of the big halls at the Central Market, taking photos, asking stupid questions, listening to the tale about the history of the place, tasting, looking, smelling. Obviuosly Marcus' latvian was good enough to make the stallowners smile - and sufficient to buy little bits and pieces. I was impressed.
We ended the tour by the river, where we had lunch - two kinds of meat, two kinds of cheese, two kinds of bread and pickled vegetables. And on our way home, Marcus bought us a sweet treat made of cottagecheese and chocolate.
25 euro per person for a tour like this (two and a half hour approx.) is a bargain.
Reviewed by
mettegrith / TripAdvisor
• November 14, 2014