Notes from a New York City Foodie Trip

Tap Water? Yes, Tap Water.

I’ll be honest. Until this moment, I had not considered blogging about tap water. Who blogs about tap water? Who even thinks about it? The answer to the latter question, however, is easy: my husband. He is a HUGE water drinker and you could even call him a water connoisseur.

Mike likes his water pure, as free of minerals as possible. He thus is not a fan of mineral water, and as an environmentally conscious person, he’s not a fan of bottled water in general. So he pays a lot of attention to the quality of tap water. We bought our home in San Leandro because tap water here (and further north in Alameda county) comes from snow melt from the Sierra Nevada – and apparently, snow melt water is the freshest and tastiest.

While I didn’t have many expectations about New York City tap water, I didn’t really think it would be good. The only time I’d read anything about it was back in the early 2000s when a story came out about how the water in NYC was not kosher – it’s full of tiny crustaceans left there to kill mosquito larva. Around that time there were stories about how the wigs many Orthodox women wear were also not kosher as they used hair cut during pagan ceremonies, but locusts, plagues of which occasionally hit Israel, are – so all these weirds facts stuck in my mind. Imagine my surprise, then, when Mike insisted in getting tap water whenever we ate out, even at fancy New York city restaurants.

It turns out that New York city tap water is really good. It has won taste contests, something which Mike, as a water connoisseur, was aware of, and tastes clean and fresh. The water comes from reservoirs and lakes in the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains, and thus it’s a combination of snow melt and rain water.

According to Mike, who had plenty of opportunity to try it, NYC tap water is just as good as ours. So if you visit, make sure to try it.