Traveling in Georgia 2018

[shain]

Lunch in Borjomi.

Lobio. This time flavored with some tarragon, in addition to the ever-present parsley. This version was a little thin compared to those I had before, more soupy, but it lacked a borth base to give it richness. It was tasty nonetheless and the tarragon added a nice bright fresh flavor which was nice on this sunny day.

Savoury yogurt soup with mint and garlic. Tasty, but we couldn't eat much of it, it is pleasant in small portions.

Grilled khachapuri. It was stuffed with an absurd amount of gooey melted sulguni cheese, which is much like mozzarella and not sour as the immeruli used in many (most?) other khachapuri. The dough was thin and crisp, lightly buttered and very tasty.

Chakapuli - lamb and herbs stew. Made with white wine, tarragon, sour unripe plums, garlic, herbs. This is a traditional dish, and has a very unique flavor. I sampled the borth and found it tart, herbal and very reminiscent of a partly cooked khoresht sabzi. The lamb, I was told, was very good.

 

[sartoric]

I’m loving this vicarious trip through Georgia. Thanks @shain. 

I have Uzbekistan tucked away on my long list of places to visit, but the focus on meat is daunting. Yes, different countries, but with similar pasts. I’d be interested to hear how you’re managing as a non meat eater.

[shain]

On 10/25/2018 at 7:33 AM, sartoric said:

I’m loving this vicarious trip through Georgia. Thanks @shain. 

I have Uzbekistan tucked away on my long list of places to visit, but the focus on meat is daunting. Yes, different countries, but with similar pasts. I’d be interested to hear how you’re managing as a non meat eater.

 

I found the Georgian cuisine to be very vegetarian friendly. Meats are very popular; but the custom of lent, the availability of dairy products, delicious produce and love of baked goods all result in many vegetarian dishes being present. During the trip I had no problem finding delicious and varied dishes to try.

Edited October 26, 2018 by shain (log)

[shain]

It was time to head back towards the city of Tbilisi, which is the last stop in our trip. This is to be a few hours long drive, plus some stops along the way.

 

At first we went through a small village at the outskirt of Borjomi, where locals were shopping for groceries. This man was buying puri.

 

 

 

After a short drive we went off the main road and entered the river-side village of Rveli.

We admired the quiet atmosphere and greenery by the small river. Many gardens and fruit bearing trees - apples, pears, quince, walnuts and grape vines. The locals greeted us and were amused by the presence of tourists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pigs were walking around, sniffing the ground for walnuts.

 

This big girl was enclosed, and was pleased when we had thrown nuts for her to eat.

 

Edited October 27, 2018 by shain (log)

[ElsieD]

@shain  Are those grapes growing wild or were they in someone's garden?

[rotuts]

@shain

 

continues thanks

 

BTW

 

Have you moved there ?

 

 

just kidding 

 

looks like a nice pleasant extended stay.

[shain]

30 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

@shain  Are those grapes growing wild or were they in someone's garden?

 

All of the vines are in gardens. One of the pictures shows a small fenced garden, with a vine it, which didn't seem to belong to any house. In it was an unpictured stone bench, facing the river.

 

6 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@shain

 

continues thanks

 

BTW

 

Have you moved there ?

 

 

just kidding 

 

looks like a nice pleasant extended stay.

 

Oh, I'd wish! 

Actually I'm long since back. The vacation was only 9 (busy) days long. I'm posting this blog in retrospect, and admittedly taking a while between posts, so it may look like a pretty long vacation.  

[rotuts]

@shain

 

I and thought as much

 

thank you again.

 

[shain]

Apologies for being so slow with posting, it's a busy month.

 

So still on the road Westwards towards Tbilisi, we stopped at a local farmers market. Many sellers had very small stocks, to my understanding they were selling their gardens crop. A few sellers were selling at larger scales.

 

 

 

Pickling herbs - bay, dill/fennel blossoms and seed heads.

 

 

Corn, flour, beans (seemingly only cranberry and similar cultivars, I haven't seen any other type sold or used), sunflower seeds are popular as snack.

 

 

Aromatic herbs, bery fresh and can be smelled all around (dill, cilantro, parsley, purple basil, tiny scallions). Also lettuce and radishes.

 

Delicious sweet peppers and green hot chilies.

 

 

We were passing by Surami, where I've read one can find Nazuki, a traditional sweet bread flavored with spices and baked in a wood fired tonis oven, rarely found anywhere else [image]. I was excited to have the chance to sample such a regional specialty. The sellers at the market pointed us to the nearby bakery, where the two old ladies there shook their heads and explained in a mixture of English and Russian that we should head on towards the town. So we did. We spent a while there, enjoying the small town and the nearby village. But the bread was nowhere to be found

Edited October 31, 2018 by shain (log)

[Smithy]

I'm curious about this implement. It's clearly a strainer of some kind, but it seems like it would be too slow to drain for culinary uses like retrieving stuffed pasta from boiling water. Perhaps it's for stirring stews or soups. Do you know its purpose?

 

[Hassouni]

13 hours ago, Smithy said:

I'm curious about this implement. It's clearly a strainer of some kind, but it seems like it would be too slow to drain for culinary uses like retrieving stuffed pasta from boiling water. Perhaps it's for stirring stews or soups. Do you know its purpose?

 

 

That looks very similar to a traditional Iranian kafgir/Iraqi chafchir, specifically used for cooking and serving rice

Edited November 3, 2018 by Hassouni (log)

[Gruzia]

On ‎10‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 1:25 PM, shain said:

We found Borjomi to be a pretty, quite and overall very pleasant town. 

 

 

There was some interesting ice cream being sold. Like this Russian ice cream, which I noticed for it's unique/strange albel, but in retrospect I regret I haven't tasted, since it's flavor (of sesame and poppy) sounds like one I would have liked.

 

There was also this Smurfs flavored ice cream (JK ofcourse no idea what it is). Cherry with chocolate/vanilla are also common flavors.

 

Various pastries.

 

Nuts, honey, home made wine.

 

 

This nice old lady was selling honey and jams and insisted on sampling us with them, at least until a bee landed and got stuck in one of the jars...

 

We bought a jar of preserved pine bads in syrup, they have a lovely and very strong piney-resiny aroma, and the lady said that they are good to relieve a cough.

But when we got home it was nowhere to be found   

 

 

 

Are you sure the pastries were truly pastries? That first picture looks like a type of khatchapuri made with layers of dough similar to filo.  Also, the churchkhela is making me salivate!  My family is from Kabuleti and so while I've been to Georgia quite a few times, I've never traveled around - I'm really enjoying this post!

Also, as a side note - the label on the ice cream (it looks to be in Ukrainian) also includes the warning "Stop Narcotics!"  which is amusing not just in its placement on ice cream but in the context of that leafy background which looks similar to marijuana.  Also - just got the association between the narcotics and poppy seeds - is it a warning that it may give you a false positive narcotic test or a suggestion of a more law abiding use for poppies?

Edited November 4, 2018 by Gruzia
to add last line (log)

[shain]

47 minutes ago, Gruzia said:

 

Are you sure the pastries were truly pastries? That first picture looks like a type of khatchapuri made with layers of dough similar to filo.  Also, the churchkhela is making me salivate!  My family is from Kabuleti and so while I've been to Georgia quite a few times, I've never traveled around - I'm really enjoying this post!

Also, as a side note - the label on the ice cream (it looks to be in Ukrainian) also includes the warning "Stop Narcotics!"  which is amusing not just in its placement on ice cream but in the context of that leafy background which looks similar to marijuana.  Also - just got the association between the narcotics and poppy seeds - is it a warning that it may give you a false positive narcotic test or a suggestion of a more law abiding use for poppies?

 

 

You are right about the khachapuri, looking at the picture again those are obviously cheese filled, with the left one being the laminated penovani khachapuri that you mentioned. Both are not looking very good, honestly. They are best eaten fresh from the oven. 

My ability to read Cyrillic was just good enough to understand this part of the label, so indeed I found it funny. Only later I managed to decipher the rest, and regret not trying it. 

[shain]

Just before entering Tbilisi, we stopped at the large modern mall for some shopping. Now I'll anything to avoid shopping, unless it's for groceries or cooking, of course  

The supermarket was neat and modern, and I've bought my share of Georgian snack, wine and ingredients. The wine section was huge, as one would expect from this country and I was also intrigued by the large bulk-goods section.

 

 

[ElsieD]

@shain  Are those momos in the bottom picture?

[shain]

10 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

@shain  Are those momos in the bottom picture?

 

Those are various khinkali.

Edited November 5, 2018 by shain (log)

[shain]

A late dinner in a lovely garden in a quite neighborhood.

 

 

Sorry for the bad pictures, I had to use flash.

Green beans in walnut sauce with cream, dill, parsley and a hint of rosemary. The menu mentioned eggs, but I couldn't notice them. Some feta, it was soft and good, but out of place. Same thing for the roasted tomato.

I really loved this dish - the rich nuts and cream, well cooked beans and herbs came out just right. I'll be sure to recreate it myself.

 

Forest mushroom, fried in butter with sea salt. Crisp and buttery, chewy but overly salty.

 

Apkhazura - Spiced pork & beef sausages in natural casing - pan fried and served with mushed potato (too dry), tkemali(sour plum sauce) and onion.

 

Also some very good local wines.

 

Tbilisi.

Edited November 5, 2018 by shain (log)

[KennethT]

I've never seen such large open bins of flour before.  Evidently sanitation is not high on their list of priorities!

[shain]

A few more images from the supermarket.

 

There were many things in bulk - pastas, candies, cookies, flour, grains, beans. Everything also available packed, of course. I think that that's a sort of cultural thing perhaps to remind people of the traditional markets, or to give a sense of the supermarket being economical/cheap. 

 

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

I've never seen such large open bins of flour before.  Evidently sanitation is not high on their list of priorities!

 

I must say, that while I too should prefer to buy my goods packed, or stored more "properly", the place was very modern, clean and well tended. The goods were refilled often, and I would be perfectly OK with eating from it.

 

 

Also, and the local pizza khachapuri hut:

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, KennethT said:

I've never seen such large open bins of flour before.  Evidently sanitation is not high on their list of priorities!

Or too high on ours? 😊

[heidih]

16 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Or too high on ours? 😊

 

The displays are lovely and entice. I think we forget about the issues in factories - uummm bug content acceptability in flour for instance.  Having it sprad out is visually stimulating.   Something we might not be aware of  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels

Having a cover on something is sometimes to me (opinion only) like those antibacterial wipes by the grocery carts - mental more than science perhaps. 

Edited November 5, 2018 by heidih (log)

[shain]

In Tbilisi, we stayed at the same hotel as in the first night of our trip.

Breakfast was, as before, very nice. It's a small hotel, and the lovely owner was cooking the food.

Tone bread. 
Meat khinkali (very soupy and tasty filing, I've been told).
Tasty tomatoes with onion and parsley (I missed the herb mixture that she the previous time). 
Kartopilis Ghvezeli - a pastry filled with potatoes and pan fried until crisp. The potato flavour was very strong, we sadly don't get such flavorful potatoes in Israel.

The highlight was the eggplant salad, made of roasted or perhaps fried eggplants, shredded and flavoured with a small amount of briefly cooked tomatoes, finely chopped walnuts, paprika and garlic.

 

 

Edited November 7, 2018 by shain (log)

[shain]

A walk around Tbilisi. Here we mostly went through the neighborhoods a little further from the main streets and the old town.

There a nice parks and many small shops. Vendors in small stalls are selling vegetables, herbs and fruits at every street corner, and the produce is top notch.

 

 

On our way, we bought a few truffles in a small shop. Nothing outstanding, but decent. The joy was sitting at the lovely park, eating them while watching the pigeons.

 

 

Edited November 10, 2018 by shain (log)

[Shelby]

Those tomatoes right above look like real--home grown, good tomatoes!

[shain]

6 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Those tomatoes right above look like real--home grown, good tomatoes!

 

They are, it seems that the Georgian has a lot of care for their produce and ingredients. Many street-side vendors are selling what to me seems like a ridiculously small amount of stock, probably grown by themselves.