Traveling in Georgia 2018

[ElsieD]

 https://www.davidlebovitz.com/shakshuka-bread-recipe/

 

This is the David Lebovitz recipe.

[Anna N]

5 hours ago, ElsieD said:

 https://www.davidlebovitz.com/shakshuka-bread-recipe/

 

This is the David Lebovitz recipe.

 Suspect that might be a delightful bread but I don’t think it is khachapuri.  For a start the dough is missing the cheese filling which is part of the charm and part of challenge.  

Edited October 10, 2018 by Anna N (log)

[shain]

We had breakfast at a local small cafe-restaurant. It was stuffed by a woman and her older mother, who were very friendly.

We had an OK turkish coffee as well as a Penovani khachapuri and a salad with walnut sauce.

The khachapuri, made with a laminated pastry, was very crisp, flaky and quite tender. Its flakiness was more akin pie-crust than a puff pastry, but it was tender and yeasted like a puff pastry. The cheese filling was mild and not as acidic as in the one we had before. It was very much like a bourekas.

The salad was great, the sauce of finely crushed walnuts, wine vinegar and herbs was great. The walnuts and vinegar together created a thin paste of sort, which coated the vegetables nicely. The vinegar was quite sweet and this worked well with the walnuts. Chopped parsley and basil added another layer of flavor. Simple and very good.

 

[shain]

After breakfast, we headed back south, for a day of hiking near Sno and Juta.

 

 

We stopped for rest and wine by a small river.

 

Edited October 11, 2018 by shain (log)

[heidih]

Oh my that boulder with a face and the "stairway to nowhere?".  Thank you for the salad descritptio with the walnut sauce. I may have to try that  with a cheese filled pastry of some sort - even a  simple quesdilla with tangy cheese.

Edited October 12, 2018 by heidih (log)

[kayb]

 I could look at your photos all day. Just stunning.

 

[ElsieD]

Those are amazing pictures of amazing scenery.  I'm hoping there are many more to come.

[KennethT]

Your photos are fantastic - they are so good that Georgia may go on the travel list! Thanks for all this!

[shain]

51 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Your photos are fantastic - they are so good that Georgia may go on the travel list! Thanks for all this!

 

Thanks 

I think it should be on your list regardless. April to May should be the prime season for green fields and rivers full with water. 

[rotuts]

@shain

 

looks like you are having a wonderful trip

 

thank you for taking the time to share w us.

[shain]

So as I mentioned, we were heading back south, which meant we were passing back by our so far favorite restaurant,  Chveni Ezo.

 

The waiters remembers us and seemed truly delighted when we told them that we enjoyed our past visit so much we just had to return.

 

We had roti puri, which was warm, but not as crisp as before. This type of bread is really as its best when super fresh.

Nadughi - farmer's cheese with plenty of of mint. I meant to order it in a traditional preparation where it is wrapped in a thin slice of sulguni cheese (see here). SoIt was slightly tangy, creamy (though not rich), and refreshing. It was nice spread over the bread.

Fried eggplants with walnut spread. The eggplant was tender and rich. The walnut spread creamy and mild, mostly nutty. The garlic was used very gently. Over all, it was very enjoyable, but I prefer the version we had on our first day at the hotel breakfast - the "meaty" texture of that eggplant (possibly steamed) and the usage of more herbs were unbeatable. Generally speaking, I don't really like fried eggplants, I often sub them for grilled ones. But the georgians seem to have the way with them and they were rarely oily or over-fried.

We also had some German weissen and a local lager.

 

For mains we had Abkhazura, which is referred to as spicy meatball, but was akin to a kebab. It made with various spices and herbs, out of them dill is notable (though not overly so), pomegranates give some sweetness and some chili which made it pleasantly more spicy than most Georgian dishes we had. It seemed grilled, but my understanding is that it is wrapped in caul fat and pan fired. It was served with raw onion, which is a popular topping to various kebab-like dishes. I was told it was very good.

We also had tkemali, which is a sour plum sauce and was very tasty, enough so that we ended up dipping bread into it and eating as is.

A dish of various forest mushrooms and crimini, in a rich broth made of their own juices and butter, browned onion, tomatoes paprika and plenty of dill and parsley. It needed some salt, but once this was take care of, it was truly delicious. I used some bread to soak from the remaining juices.

Two meat filled khinkali, one called "urban style" and one "mountain style" (I can't recall the Georgian names). The first flavored with parsley and cilantro, the other gently spiced with cumin and/or caraway.

One cheese filled khinkali (the cheese a combination of imaruli and farmers cheese), was slightly tart, and chewy like melted fresh mozzarella. But I didn't like it much, it didn't work in dumpling form. I prefered the mushroom version from last time and hadn't tried the potato version (seemed somewhat boring). I was impressed with the availability of vegetarian versions everywhere, possibly due to lents dicatating meat free meals.

 

 

Before the meal, I was eyeing the pelamushi on the dessert menu, but since we were stuffed to the brim, I had to pass it.

[shain]

Next day, I woke up feeling quite sick. Not having much of an appetite, I could only get myself to eat some crepe with preserves and sour cream.

Those were our breakfasts:

 

I was told that the sausages were smokey and tasty, the octopus salad unpleasantly tough, and the eggs tasted OK even though it seems something bad had happened to them.

There was also a nice variety of cheeses, including chewy smoked sulguni served with raisins and nuts; various pickles, and fruits.

 

As we headed out for our day trip, I've found that the drive is not doing well with me. We took a break on the river bank by the road, and spent some time admiring nature and picking berries.

 

 

 

[KennethT]

@shain Sorry to hear about not feeling well.... I've been there.  Do you know what those berries were?  The first ones look almost like hops (not a berry)...

[shain]

51 minutes ago, KennethT said:

@shain Sorry to hear about not feeling well.... I've been there.  Do you know what those berries were?  The first ones look almost like hops (not a berry)...

 

Thanks for caring, it's a bummer, but could have been worse.

I forgot to write about the hops. I really like stumbling on wild hops, I like their smell, both when old and garlicky and young and, well, hoppy as those were. It's also nice thinking how did it came so that someone picked some and added to a boiling pot of barley.

The real berries I believe to be some sort of blackberries.

The last image is obviously of roseheaps.

[Okanagancook]

@shain hope you are feeling better....keep hydrated.

loving your travel report.

 

[shain]

 

We were suggested a complementary dinner at the hotel While I was feeling better by evening, I still didn't have much of an appetite.

Nothing really interesting. A sample of a few salads and pickles. Herbed mushroom salad, beet salad, pickled string beans, spinach pkhali. The strange looking pickle at the front left is jonjoli - pickled flowers with a flavor similar to capers but more floral. It would make a decent puttanesca sauce.

 

We also sampled some cakes. They were mostly OK.

[shain]

Again, nothing interesting for breakfast  (More stomach room for lunch I guess).

 

Watery kasha. Some sausages. A weird baked egg. Some OK pelmeni. A puffy semi-crisp pancake thingy, with sour cream, farmers cheese, cherry preserve and honey.

Some of the local Borjomi sparkling mineral water. Which I found to taste of lime and iron. 

 

 

A morning hike in the natural reserve of Borjomi.

 

 

 

 

[kayb]

What is it that looks like an apple in a cage?

 

[shain]

17 hours ago, kayb said:

What is it that looks like an apple in a cage?

 

Those are a sort of groundcherries, a relative of the tomatillo. 

[shain]

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   

 

Edited October 22, 2018 by shain (log)

[heidih]

We will definitely need explanations of the interesting "stuff in jars". Especially the one that looks like it has little unopen fir cones. Thanks!

[shain]

6 minutes ago, heidih said:

We will definitely need explanations of the interesting "stuff in jars". Especially the one that looks like it has little unopen fir cones. Thanks!

 

Sorry, I was just mid editing

[Thanks for the Crepes]

15 hours ago, shain said:

Those are a sort of groundcherries, a relative of the tomatillo. 

 

First, I have to say that I am so enjoying your fascinating travel report! Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us.

 

Second, I still need to know more about this image. It actually looks like an organic fruit is inside a 14K golden cage designed to look like an organic structure. Is this a trick of the light in the photograph, or is this actually what this plant looks like in real life, with perhaps more of a straw like cage instead of the golden jewelry it appears to be? Sorry to keep at it after kayb asked you already, but there appears to be another fruit below and to the right in the image that seems more like a tomatillo or gooseberry.  Either way, beautiful, beautiful image!

 

 

[Duvel]

1 hour ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

Second, I still need to know more about this image. It actually looks like an organic fruit is inside a 14K golden cage designed to look like an organic structure. Is this a trick of the light in the photograph, or is this actually what this plant looks like in real life, with perhaps more of a straw like cage instead of the golden jewelry it appears to be? 

 

Physalis

 

[shain]

12 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

First, I have to say that I am so enjoying your fascinating travel report! Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us.

 

Second, I still need to know more about this image. It actually looks like an organic fruit is inside a 14K golden cage designed to look like an organic structure. Is this a trick of the light in the photograph, or is this actually what this plant looks like in real life, with perhaps more of a straw like cage instead of the golden jewelry it appears to be? Sorry to keep at it after kayb asked you already, but there appears to be another fruit below and to the right in the image that seems more like a tomatillo or gooseberry.  Either way, beautiful, beautiful image!

 

 

 

Thank you! 

It is just a well preserved (or perhaps well decayed) specimen.