Feed me Georgian food all day

I am in love with Georgian cuisine. It has many vegetable-focused dishes (very vegetarian friendly!) which was quite welcome after spending over two months traveling in Central Asia - when the focus is plov (rice with meat) or bread, you dream of vegetables other than a cucumber and tomato salad! Georgian cuisine also has a strong focus on good bread (khachapuri, lobiani, and other stuffed breads) which seems to balance out all the nutrient-filled vegetarian dishes. The fresh produce is amazing here and I definitely arrived during a good time - it’s the season for ripe stone fruit and figs and I love picking up a bag of figs on the walk back to my hostel.

Here’s a quick look at some of the meals and foods I’ve had while making my way across Georgia. If you’re in New York I recommend checking out Chama Mama. It’s a Georgian restaurant located in Chelsea that features delicious Georgian food and wine. Special shoutout to Jesse and Christine, who first recommended this restaurant, and Liz for introducing me to my first Georgian meal!

Fresh produce is a lot cheaper outside of the grocery store whether that’s in the bazaar or on small shops on the side of the street. It’s amazing how delicious and inexpensive produce is here!

A nut and churchkhela stall in the bazaar. Churchkhela is a homemade Georgian candy made from grape juice, flour and walnuts. It’s essentially a string of walnuts incased in a layer of grape juice/fruit leather. Its nickname is “Georgian Snickers” but personally I think that nickname is way off from what it actually tastes like.

A view into the produce market next to the bus station.

One of my favorite things about Georgia, especially visiting in August and September, is the fresh and sweet figs and stone fruit! These figs are the best I’ve had in my life.

Bread is a staple in Georgian cuisine. Here you can see khachapuri (bread stuffed with cheese) being baked in a traditional oven.

Chebureki is a fried dough stuffed with meat that closely resembles an empanada. The pastry was deliciously flaky, but the meat filling inside was quite sparse!

Look at that fig! Equally beautiful and delicious.

One version of khachapuri, cheese-filled bread, bought in Kazbegi, Georgia. We were able to get them fresh out of the oven from a bakery owned by a pair of brothers who invited us into the shop to take a look at how they bake the bread. They only make khachapuri, lobiani (bean-filled bread), and plain bread.

A deeper look into chebureki.

One of my favorite dishes - pkhali. Pkhali is traditional Georgian dish where chopped and minced vegetables are mixed with ground walnuts and herbs to form a paste that’s rolled into a ball. Typically pkhali balls are made from either beets, carrots, eggplants, or spinach.

In this platter you’ll also see mchadi, Georgian cornbread, which is typically eaten with pkhali. The platter also included several types of Georgian cheese (not my favorite - Georgian cheese tends to be quite strong and a little sour in flavor) and jonjoli salad (a salad made from pickled jonjoli bushes. I’d never heard of this plant before - Google tells me the plant is also called Staphylea or bladdernuts)

Another look at pkhali, also from Cafe Leila where the previous photo was taken. The purple ball is made from beets, the green from spinach, the orange from carrots and peppers, and the brown from eggplant. The white are balls of cheese.

Every country has its version of the dumpling and in Georgia it’s khinkali. To me they are more similar to 小籠包 (xiao long bao) than regular 餃子 (jiao zi; dumplings) because khinkali are filled with broth.

Similar to 小籠包, khinkali are eaten by first biting a hole in the dough to suck out all the soup before proceeding to consume the rest of the khinkali. However one part that differs is that most Georgians typically don’t eat the top of the khinkali! I found this very strange because the dough is my favorite part and it seemed like a random part to leave uneaten. However this is because most of the time the top part is still raw despite the rest of the khinkali being cooked through and because people want to leave more space in their stomachs for more khinkali / filling rather than dough.

Khinkali typically feature a filling of mushrooms (my favorite), ground beef, a mixture of ground beef and pork, or potatoes and cheese.

A refreshing mint lemonade. Most of the lemonades here are fresh and natural, rather than the sodas back home or in Central Asia, so I found this quite refreshing!

Kubdari is a Georgian bread filled with spiced meat and is local to the Svan region (northwest Georgia).

A meal while in Sighnagi, the “City of Love” located in Kakheti, the wine region of Georgia. We had this meal at a family-owned winery where the food was cooked by the mother and grandmother. All of the produce is grown in their own garden - locally sourced!

On the left: Nigvziani badrijani (eggplants with walnut paste) is one of my favorite dishes in Georgia! It features pre-grilled sliced eggplant that’s lathered with a walnut paste.

On the right: a version of khachapuri where this one is a round bread filled with cheese.

On the top: Green beans with scrambled eggs. These green beans tasted more similar to Southern-styled cooked green beans (aka boiled).

I had this delicious Georgian platter at Sisters restaurant in Kutaisi (western Georgia) that featured some of the most well-known Georgian dishes.

Left: Khachapuri (round bread stuffed with cheese)

Left corner: Pkhali (balls of minced veggies and ground walnuts) and sliced eggplant with walnut paste

Top: Georgian cheese

Top right: Mchadi (cornbread)

Right: Cucumber and tomato salad - a favorite Georgian salad. It’s funny because this salad is also quite popular in Central Asia but mixed with different spices. My favorite Georgian version of this salad is when it’s mixed with walnut paste and cilantro.

Bottom: Chicken liver with plum sauce - a dish local to the region we were in. Not my favorite but interesting to try!

Bottom left: grilled chicken

A meal in Mestia, a town in the Svaneti region of Georgia.

Top: mushrooms baked in a clay pot - so simple yet delicious! Mushrooms are featured frequently in Georgian cuisine and are cooked so wonderfully.

Bottom: Eggplant salad with walnut paste.

Wine ice cream*! Yup, you read that right. I’m not quite sure how this ice cream is made or flavored, but it definitely tastes like wine. The first bite tastes like grape but then you get an aftertaste of wine.

*This is not “typical” Georgian cuisine. I’m pretty sure this is a tourist / marketing / hype product but it was awesome.