Love and Georgia

My apologies for neglecting the blog for a bit. Between spotty internet this week, new food discoveries, english-speaking channels on cable and the thousand books I downloaded to my kindle, I've taken a short leave. But I have got to catch everyone up on our recent restaurant find...

Last weekend, as all weekends are designated to be "tourist days", we attempted to conquer the Arbat, which is a strip in Moscow close to our apartment full of souvenier shops, restaurants and cafes. It makes for good strolling with Hubs as long as we avoid the tourist traps. Its like anywhere you go, struggling artists showing off their grand paintings of the countryside mixed with other masterpieces like what Michael Jackson would look like as a chihuahua. And did you know that people walking around with boards on either side of their bodies advertising a business around the corner is not just something Furniture Warehouse does when it's going out of business for the millionth time? Caricatures, nesting dolls, furr Russian hats (that I haven't seen ANYONE wearing yet...), you name it, they've got it here. Its an excellent mix of those in a hurry to get where they're going and those who aren't quite sure where they are.

They have a pub here. A few of them, actually. A couple were full, some looked stuffy, but we knew we found our place when we checked our coat at the door, went down some very narrow stairs, through a busy lounge area, were kicked out of the lounge area (how did they know we weren't there for the swanky private party?) and finally made it to the basement dark smoky corner of an authentic Irish pub. How do we know its authentic? We don't. But they had Guinness and we obviously looked very Irish because the bartender immediately set us up with two pints which we enjoyed to the beat of Blink-182 and soccer in the background. Legit.

After our pints, we had to come up for air and dinner. Yana, who had been showing us apartments had recommended a Georgian restaurant in the area and we were dying to try it. She told us that most Russian food isn't actually Russian. Heavy Georgian and Ukrainian influences make up the "authentic" Russian cuisine. Even borscht isn't Russian, but hails from the Ukraine. As Yana put it, "We just like it." That's enough for me.

The restaurant looks amazing. It's designed to have the appearance of dining in the Mountains of Georgia. I actually am not certain if they are mountains or hills, but being from South Texas, I think they're all mountains, so I can get away with it without double-checking my facts with google. Every table is very private and tucked away, ours was over a bridge with a small pond below. Just beautiful!

The menu is half Russian/half English, which is almost worse than all Russian. And, there were no pictures. So we really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into most of the time. We just knew the meat that we would be served. We're getting really good at this game we like to call, "guess whats for dinner..." Our server didn't know a lick of english, but he was a real lifesaver when he recommended this Georgian bread dish that was significantly more expensive than the pita we had ordered with our pickle platter. Totally worth it, though. I love bread anyway, but this melt-in-your-mouth, cheese-filled, flaky piece of heaven took my love affair with bread to a whole new level.

From there, we just used a simple formula that we've created factoring price, page on the menu and meat to decide on a dish that we could only half understand. You don't want anything too expensive, but anything too cheap probably has extra small portions. Anything too early or too late on the menu could be an appetizer, dessert or glass of carrot juice. And meat is just important.

I don't know if I can properly describe this food as they are meant to be described. Dan ordered a sampler of mutton, veal and pork and the meat tasted smooth. Less is more in the spice category in Georgia, but they know how to work it and it maintains the greatest flavor. My dish was veal sauteed with potatoes and onions. Rich, smooth goodness. You'll notice from the pictures that there's dill everywhere. I don't know what dish here doesn't get a healthy dose of fresh dill and thankfully, we're not sick of it yet. Just a heads up, though, I will probably not want anything dill in any welcome home meal. Unless its homeade pickle juice. Then it'll be ok. And even then, only if its preceeded with Jameson.

We had a great experience, and not only was the food delicious, but the entertainment as well. What can best be described as "Georgian Mariachi Band" wandered through the place, and occassionally a dancing ninja appeared a song or two in. Yes, dancing ninja. These men were dressed in all black and I'm pretty sure you would be unrecognizable if you challenged them to a dance off. I wish I could upload the video here, but I am not blog saavy enough yet. Or I'm just not patient enough to wait for the thing to load and it was taking forever. For now, a picture will have to do...

Cheers to our different Georgian neighbors. They may not have fried green tomatoes and Braves baseball, but they sure know how to get down.