Georgian restaurants?

While here in St. Petersburg, Russia, I've been feasting on an exquisite array of Georgian cuisine. Tonite, had Khorcha (probably going to come out misspelled--i'm working with a semi-cyrillic typewriter), which is a beef and rise soup that is somewhat redolent of Indian cuisine. Also had beef stewed with pomegranates, tomatoes, onions, and pepper, with cilantro. Had a delicious pastry as well, with cheese, butter, and an egg yolk in it.
Anyways, are there any Georgian restaurants in Chicago, for my return in about a month?
I encourage anyone to get into some Georgian food, if so.

Parker, there is an amazing Georgian Bakery in Chicago:

Argo Georgian Bakery
(2812 W. Devon Ave. Chicago, IL 60659. 773/764-6322)

I highly recommend them, especially their Hachapuri. Oh my!

I wrote a little review of the place if you are interested in more information and looking at some pictures.

http://probonobaker.typepad.com/probono ... ian_b.html

Argo has never gotten its own write-up here but has been praised highly, though briefly, a number of times in a somewhat odd collection of threads (search on "Argo"). Two things I've mentioned here that I really love from Argo are the spinach and especially meat pies and also their frozen Russian (pelmyeni) and Georgian stuffed dumplings.

Antonius

Georgian is a cuisine I've always wanted to try (someday I will). There are two I've driven past that intrigue me. One, not far from Argo Bakery, is Tbilisi (2954 W. Devon Ave.) and the other, (whose name I don't remember, but I drive past frequently) is on the north side of Dempster in Skokie. I vaguely recall there was also a Georgian place in Glencoe, but I also vaguely recall that it's not there anymore.

Can anyone else fill in the details that my strained brain can't come up with?

It's been a year or so since I ventured into Tbilisi. We were the only ones there, although it helped that my companion spent several years in Russia and spoke nearly fluent Russian. She engaged the proprietress and we had some things not ordinarily available.

Sadly, I can no longer recall any of the dishes that we had. I can recall that we both enjoyed it, found it reasonably priced and would happily return. But the atmosphere is...less than inviting...faux brick, cheap, bad imitation Georgian art.... Sorry I'm unable to offer much in the way of specifics , but I do recall being favorably impressed at the time. As was my "expert" companion, who pronounced the food surprisingly authentic to her taste.

Gypsy Boy

nr706 wrote:I vaguely recall there was also a Georgian place in Glencoe, but I also vaguely recall that it's not there anymore.

If it is the place I'm thinking of, near the McDonald's on Greenbay Road, then it is long gone.

I went to Restaurant Tbilisi once long ago. Wasn't impressed enough to return, but perhaps things changed by the time Gypsy Boy arrived.

Regards,

Hi...my first post here.

I have never been to a Georgian restaurant or to Georgia, but I spent a week with a Georgian friend of mine and their food is truly unique. It is true what they say about Georgian hospitality. Georgian food has to be tasted in a Georgian home. They have this crazy affection for all things walnut. Walnut sauce in their chicken, walnut with kidney beans. Pomegranate juice, plum sauce, cinnamon, fennel, various spices all make Georgian cuisine unique in the region. Their mountain cuisine is hearty and robust. Apparently, Georgia also has a number of 'salad greens' that my friend couldnt name.

She made hachapuri, a cheese pie and chicken with walnut sauce. Lobio made like a stew with lots of stew and aubergine with..guess what...walnuts. and garlic. I think you get the theme now. A very fragrant brothy soup and a salad with 'everything' and a very herby/creamy vinaigrette with it.

She likes to keep vegetarian(altho' somehow this includes chicken) so she didnt make the Georgian version of the beef and rice soup. I believe it's called kharcho. It did waft like Indian to me too and that is because Georgian cuisine employs spices and the soup includes a very fragrant spice blend. It has a tart plum sauce base, onions+garlic+tomato(this too occurs as a base for many Indian sauces..minus the tart plum sauce, of course) and also walnut. The walnut oil makes it rich. The garnish is cilantro. Indian cuisine has the same template except for the plum sauce. Instead of the tart plum, they would probably use lemon juice.

Georgian tea and wine are also very famous...at least in that region... I was particularly intrigued by the tea which was very 'floral'. It was less tannic than most teas and is generally considered inferior to Indian or Chinese tea, but I liked it a lot. It is no Earl Grey or Darjeeling, but it is interesting. I have never tried Georgian wines, but when I was in London, I heard that some supermarkets carry Georgian wines.

I will try to get recipes if you are interested.

Can't vouch for it, but there's a Georgian hole-in-the-wall place in Skokie, on the north side of Dempster a little east of the Skokie Swift terminal.

St. Rustaveli
4902 W. Dempster St.
Skokie
847/677-6710

>>Brent

Antonius wrote:Argo has never gotten its own write-up here but has been praised highly, though briefly, a number of times in a somewhat odd collection of threads (search on "Argo"). Two things I've mentioned here that I really love from Argo are the spinach and especially meat pies and also their frozen Russian (pelmyeni) and Georgian stuffed dumplings.

Antonius

You know I've watched them hand roll ( ) out those dumplings and have always wondered how good they are. Given the excellent bread, I always thought yes*. Glad to know.

The interesting thing, for the purpose of this thread, is that the people at Argo do not think very highly of Tbisli. Every time I go into Argo I hassle Vladimer, the baker's son who often works the register about a) where to get Georgian food in a vChicago restaurant--answer he does not know and then b) why does he not open up a restaurant.

Rob

*To show the the whole fallacy sometimes of our opinions or knowledge, for a long time, I did not like Argo because I had a couple of less than fresh loaves, but Gwiv convinced me to give it another try, and I learned that the less fresh loaves were the flukes not the other way around. How many other times do we form our opinion on limited evidence, especially as we bandy about opinions all the time.

Vital Information wrote:

Antonius wrote: Two things I've mentioned here that I really love from Argo are the spinach and especially meat pies and also their frozen Russian (pelmyeni) and Georgian stuffed dumplings.

Antonius

You know I've watched them hand roll ( ) out those dumplings and have always wondered how good they are. Given the excellent bread, I always thought yes*. Glad to know.
Rob

Glad to be of service. Try them; they (should) be good, barring any flukes.

A

P.S. Rob, you got me in a grumpy mood (allergies and insufficient sleep), so here goes (:P):

Regarding hand-rolled pasta, I'm not inclined to let the actual point of dispute to which you refer get warped over time at my expense. In the OVS thread you suggested the use of an Atlas hand-crank rolling machine ruins the texture of pasta and I said that that's definitely wrong. Those out there who have a reasonable amount of experience making pasta by hand -- and I do -- know that. The evidence posted with pictures of the work area of an artisanal pastificio in Emilia Romagna(!!!) certainly lends powerful support to my point.

I also said that the vast majority of places that make Italian pasta in any sort of volume, use such cranks. That exceptions may exist does not negate my point. With regard to Argo, they're not making Italian pasta and I seriously doubt that they work in especially vast quantities. Given that they sell them frozen, I suspect they periodically devote a certain amount of time to the task and don't need to produce hand-rolled pasta over the course of the day in anticipation of the arrival of waves of diners. I should also add that the lingering impression for me of the quality of their pelmyeni dough is that it is pretty good but not great; obviously, the quality was adversely affected by their having been frozen but even taking that into consideration it seems to be slightly on the floury and thus potentially gummy side (so beware not to over cook them!).

Perhaps one can find out when the folks at Argo make the pelmyeni and Georgian dumplings fresh and get them that day. That would be nice. If you have a chance to find that out, please let me know!

I have dined at the place on Dempster in Skokie. It is a Georgian place that is primarily run by Armenians. The food, while not spectaular, was quite good, and the prices reasonable. I would go back.

Glenn

OK, I'll bite (so to speak!)

Seem's we are reducing the question to two variables:

How much does freezing pasta affect it. That's a good question, and I do not have enough experience/evidence to have an opinion on it. Because I trust your opinion on these things, I can surely *see* how freezing dough can adversely affect it.

The pasta I had at OVS was not especially good even though it was advertised as homemade. Now, I took it on face value that the pasta was homemade, ie. that the pasta was not purchased or produced elsewhere. But if the pasta was made in house, I saught to understand why exactly it was not particuliarly good and by that I mean, it did not taste very much like other home made pasta I have had. I reached a conclusion that it could be two possible factors: a) it was made using an extruder machine b) it was made in an Atlas machine. Now, I did not know the answer to my question, it was just guesses as why it did not taste true.

Now, you are contending that I would basically never be unhappy with pasta made on an Atlas machine or that with the pasta made on the Atlas machine, I would not notice a distinctly inferior quality. Or put another way, I think you contend that if OVS used an Atlas machine, I would not find the pasta so poor. Maybe you are right, maybe the poor pasta was not the result of the Atlas machine, but my gut sense is that it was and it is also my gut sense, as shown with the excerpt, that some Italians find a real difference between hand rolled pasta and pasta made on an Atlas machine. Still, absent knowing the exact reason that produced the poor pasta at OVS, it's all speculatin'*

Rob

*And perhaps we should not rule out the idea that the pasta was not really house made.

I saw the reference to hand-rolled pasta as nothing more than a (relatively) self-deprecatory tongue-in-cheek jest. In bringing the baggage of the other thread aren't we at risk of hi-jacking this thread about Georgian restaurants?

Said with non-moderator groundings, just as an interested (in Georgian restaurant offerings) observer.

Karl, you're right in principle*, but also note that one person's hijacking is another's interesting digression. Amongst mods, I tend to want to "sort threads out" more than others, and I s'pose if needed, I can move Antonius's and my digression to the OVS thread.

Rob

*Yea, I was teasing!

In an effort not to ignore the real topic of the thread, let me say that Russian Tea Time, on Jackson (I bleieve) in the Loop, just across from the Art Institute, serves some Georgian dishes, thought the restaurant is neither owned by Georgians nor has a specific focus on Georgian cuisine.

A

_______________
Pasta digression:

Rob, I know you were teasing and I wasn't gonna let you get away with out getting some teasing back!

As I said in the OVS thread, completely hand-rolled pasta, done by someone who knows what they're doing. is the best. I know that and said it straight away. But pasta is not rendered lousy by rolling it through an Atlas machine. The sad quality OVS that you describe cannot be attributed just to the use of such a machine.

The quality of fresh pasta is affected by lots of factors. Hand-made fresh pasta is not necessarily good. Finally, to my mind, using a hand-cranked roller at the final stage of preparing fresh pasta does not render the product something not legitimately "hand-made."

I would agree with the following position, as, I think, you do: using mechanical devices to mix and work the dough, as well as to shape it with an extruder, will produce fresh pasta with, generally speaking, a signifiantly poorer texture than can be achieved by someone who makes the fresh pasta by hand and possesses some reasonable level of skill at doing so.

Kman:

I saw the reference to hand-rolled pasta as nothing more than a (relatively) self-deprecatory tongue-in-cheek jest.

And? What's your point?

Antonius wrote:
And? What's your point?

I guess that if I had so strongly felt the need to continue the thread in response to a tongue-in-cheek reference I would have indicated as such and made note that there was a continuation back in the original thread, supplying a link, rather than risk pushing the thread off-topic. Just my opinion (since you asked).

Kman wrote:

Antonius wrote:
And? What's your point?

I guess that if I had so strongly felt the need to continue the thread in response to a tongue-in-cheek reference I would have indicated as such and made note that there was a continuation back in the original thread, supplying a link, rather than risk pushing the thread off-topic. Just my opinion (since you asked).

Well, had you read this post...
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=35524#35524
... carefully, you would have noticed that a) the response to Rob's tease was put in a p.s. and b) even in the p.s., I made a point of returning to the topic of Argo's, the Georgian bakery, dumplings.

This metacommentary on the appropriateness of digressing about dough-making is far more of an interruption than the original digression.

And with that, I exit this thread.
A

Getting back to Georgian, the food sounds great, and while I have had Georgian wine I have not dined in a Georgian restaurant. Regarding the statement that the food is unique to the region, I guess I want more detail. Walnuts and pomegranates are pretty classic Caucasian ingredients. Considering the somewhat capricious political boundaries imposed on this tribal part of the world, where the folks who weave rugs travel freely from one country to another, what is it that is peculiarly Georgian?

I'm not trying to be controversial, I just want to know what to look for that I will only see in a Georgian place (not unlike wanting to know what is unique to Issan food as opposed to Thai at large or Oaxacan vs. Mexican, etc.).

Thanks.

JeffB wrote:Getting back to Georgian, the food sounds great, and while I have had Georgian wine I have not dined in a Georgian restaurant. Regarding the statement that the food is unique to the region, I guess I want more detail. Walnuts and pomegranates are pretty classic Caucasian ingredients. Considering the somewhat capricious political boundaries imposed on this tribal part of the world, where the folks who weave rugs travel freely from one country to another, what is it that is peculiarly Georgian?

I'm not trying to be controversial, I just want to know what to look for that I will only see in a Georgian place (not unlike wanting to know what is unique to Issan food as opposed to Thai at large or Oaxacan vs. Mexican, etc.).

Thanks.

i think baklava, pilaf, dolmas, grilled meats etc are common to the 'region' as a whole. i dont think armenian cuisine(of which i know very little) uses walnuts as a sauce base for meats etc. also, i think georgia, being where it is geographically, is slam bang at the point of europeon,middle eastern, slavic cultural(and hence culinary)convergence. every invader who entered or exited the region(on both sides of georgia) left a cultural fingerprint. i can only hazard a guess, but armenian cuisine is more middle eastern while georgian is more europeon? please correct me if i am wrong. georgia also has influences from soviet russia. of course, there are fewer armenians than georgians to spread their cultural memes because of the armenian holocaust etc. you are probably right. there is no reason for georgian cusine to be different from the other caucasian cuisines except that the level of exposure is higher and hence knowledge of georgian cuisine is more widespread. my 2c.

I wasn't really going specifically for an Armenian comparison, though Armenian food differs from other broadly "Middle Eastern" foods in many respects, not unlike Turkish and Persian. Maybe I had Fesenjan in mind. In any event, Armenia today is obviously another rather artificial political boundary, and Georgia has its fair share of Armenians.

I did find a pretty detailed site devoted to Georgian food. Several recipes are designated as both Georgian and Armenian, but most are not. I'd like to try the skewered, grilled eggs sometime. Seems like tricky business to cook an egg. Georgian history is like that of other feudal kingdoms in the area, a lot of sacking by Persians, Turks, Mongols, and Soviets. But it does seem that there has always been a distinct and solid local culture, well regarded for its food by the neighbors. So I concur that it would be great to have a nice Georgian place. (A background point here is that not every country, no matter how lovely, interesting and/or important culturally, politically, etc., has food to get excited about; thus, there is no real need, in my opinion, to have a Noah's Ark (excuse the pun) of ethnic restaurants. I'll settle for places representing merely delicious and unique national, regional and ethnic cuisines.)

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/rus ... nes/109942

The skewered eggs sound very intriguing. This site also had the only recipe I've seen for cornelian cherry, the fruit of a member of the dogwood family, cornus mas. The fruits are generally touted as something that will attract birds, although I have snacked on them and found them sour and thus quite to my liking.