on georgian food

There is really nothing like Georgian food. It is one of my favourites, and although there are several (ok, I think three) Georgian restaurants in London, none of them are is good as what you actually get in Georgia, or even Moscow. Despite the recent few years of spats and hostilities, Moscow does sport some excellent Georgian places, and I take newcomers to Moscow to them as I would take someone visiting London to a curry place, as an example of excellent “local” cuisine. It is funny how certain places get identified in my mind with certain food. I identify London with curry, Rome with Pasta and Moscow, oddly, with Korean and Georgian. So last week when I found myself showing a colleague around Moscow, I immediately took him to one of my favourite Georgian places. The menu was all in Russian, which my colleague couldn’t read, so I was left in the difficult position (for a vegetarian) of choosing meat. Lost, I did eventually differ to the superior knowledge of the Georgian waiter. Whatever type of Shashlik he eventually brought my colleague was impressed by, so I suppose it all worked out for the best. But most of all he was amazed by the hachipuri. When it arrived, he thought it was just pizza, which he then claimed he didn’t like, but when he bit into it he paused and said simply “tremendous” which is exactly what Georgian food is.