I like real food for a long ride. I'll start out with some high calorie liquid meal replacement in my bottles (sustained energy) so I know the foundation is solid. Then I will use real food - sandwiches, soups, tamales, payday bars, etc. during the ride. I'll use some block type things (honey stinger chews are amazing and should basically be called what they are: candy), but gels do not make me happy or satisfied during a long ride.

What food or how much I tolerate depends a lot on intensity of the ride. IF I am hammering, it's less solid food, more chews and liquid nutrition. For most brevets, real food is better. Since you describe your ride as a "tour", that would be more my brevet pace I think.

Best thing I ate during my 400k fleche last weekend was chicken noodle soup from Denny's. We got there around midnight and they had technically stopped serving the soup hours earlier, but it stayed cooking slightly in the pot, so it had condensed down to a super salty heavenly mixture. We also had a "real" dinner stop with pasta and fries. Yum! They had white tablecloths and wine glasses out and we come in with full reflective gear and blinky lights on.