Hitting the Sauce

There was no wind and we were in the middle of the Black Sea on a bright summer day, puttering across the deep blue expanse in a chaika, a small wooden Cossack war ship that its Ukrainian sail-ors had equipped with a diesel motor. We were two days out from Yalta, and our captain, Myron, was looking eastward towards our destination of Batumi, his blue eyes glazed in a dreamy state of longing. “Ah, Georgia. Satsivi,” he sighed. “Satsivi,” he repeated sensually to Roman, the first mate, as if it were the name of a beckoning siren. “I cannot wait.” I was impressed he didn’t sob for khinkali and khachapuri like everyone else. But still, I had to quickly snuff out his reverie.

Vinotheca

Before the tourists discovered Tbilisi, Kote Apkhazi Street was Leselidze Street, an unassuming cobblestone ribbon connecting Old Town’s bath district, Abanotubani, with Freedom Square. Home to the Georgian Synagogue, the Armenian Holy Church of Nazareth, and Father of The Cross Church, no other street represents the capital’s multi-ethnic and multi-denominational heritage better. Other than these houses of God, Leselidze hosted several religious shops, a couple of unremarkable restaurants, second-hand clothes shops and mom-and-pop groceries. No one foresaw the flocks of visitors that would invade the Old Town with their selfie sticks, but people understood the location had a future.

Kikliko

The Georgian culinary experience is all about the dinner, stereotypically a glutton’s nirvana of singularly delicious foods stacked plate by plate to the ceiling alongside beer pitchers full of wine. This might explain why, after a night of belt-popping gourmandizing, there is very little in the way of a breakfast culture in Tbilisi. Another explanation might be that Tbiliseli are not morning people. Most cafes open around 11 a.m., which is about the time our neighborhood baker is slapping his first batch of bread in the tone. Nevertheless, people do break the fast at home, often with leftover bread and butter or a chunk of cheese, or maybe day-old khachapuri.

Salobie Bia

This story starts with a hamburger, a juicy, perfectly grilled patty between a pair of fresh, no-frill homemade buns and the standard trimmings. As burgers become part of the culinary landscape in Tbilisi, we find that many cooks have a tendency to get too slick with a dish that loathes pretension. But this place, Burger House, nailed the balance between originality and straightforwardness. While sopping the drippings up with finger-thick fries we saw a hamburger story in the making and filed the idea away in our bucket list of food tales. A year or so later, walking down Machebeli Street in Sololaki, we saw a little basement joint named Salobie Bia with a Gault & Millau (a French restaurant guide) sign above the door and decided to investigate further. Several lip-smacking meals later, we learned that the chef and co-owner of this place is the same guy who was responsible for those impressive burgers.

Zen and the Art of Georgian Toasting

“The moment we were born, the moment we entered the world, so many people were happy. Our mothers, fathers, relatives; the doctor who delivered us, the nurses that helped; maybe some guys hanging out with our fathers said ‘Cheers!’ or ‘Congratulations!’ and patted our dads on the back. So many people and we don’t even know their names, who they were. Let’s drink to all those people who were happy that we were born – that with this toast we can say ‘thank you’ to them.” The year was 2001, and I had just crossed the border from Turkey into Georgia with my partner, Justyna. The Batumi train to Tbilisi had been roasting under the blistering June sun all day. Boarding with heavy backpacks, we were instantly pummeled with the grim reality that the windows of these Soviet-born wagons were all sealed shut; save for one in the middle, just big enough for three heads to poke out, panting for air.

One of the World’s Earliest Energy Bars in Tbilisi

A vendor in the Deserter’s Bazaar shows off her churchkhela, a very traditional Georgian specialty usually homemade from grape juice thickened with flour and nuts. They say that churchkhela were created by Georgian warriors as a sugar hit that wouldn’t perish on a long march – in other words, one of the world’s earliest energy bars.

Farewell, Nunu

We are so heartbroken to report the passing of Nunu Gachechiladze, fondly known as our “Pickle Queen” at Tbilisi’s Deserter’s Bazaar. We first met Nunu two years ago, while mapping out our market walk with Justyna Mielnikiewicz. In our decade and a half of life together in Georgia, Justyna, a Polish native and pickle expert by default, had never been impressed with local pickled cucumbers, finding them too salty, too mushy or simply bland. Some sort of cosmic force directed us to Nunu. How else to explain that out of all the pickle makers at the bazaar, we were drawn deep into a hidden corner of the labyrinthine market to where Nunu stood behind stacks of her creations?