Spotted a new Georgian restaurant — Saperavi — on Upper West Side on Amsterdam and couldn’t hold it. I do miss this food and can have it any day.

What a gem!

Perfect pork mtzvadi, amazing selection of pkhali. Although I prefer lamb khinkali, their beef ones were so brothy, tasty, and just the perfect size — not too big to overwhelm, not too small to underserve — we inhaled them piping hot. And an excellent choice of pickles. They even had jonjoli, earthy, slightly bitter flower buds of a Georgian plant.

The two of us skipped khachapuri — for any of the Georgian cheese breads bigger company is better. The bread fills you up quickly and there’s so much on the menu to try.

People serving were easy and genial — as if we were in one of the warm green gardens of Mtskheta and not in Manhattan at Arctic temperatures. Hope this won’t change.

#food #georgianfood #outinnewyork #diningout #upperwestside #mtzvadi #khinkali #pkhali #jonjoli #newyorkrestaurant

It was a family movie night out but dinner first.

Chama Mama on Upper West Side in Manhattan.

Like everything that has a strong connection to childhood, Georgian food will forever hold a particular place in my mind and always draw me in. Especially now, at this strange moment in my life — when there’s everything everywhere all at once and mixed up.

But there’s Georgian food and, then, there’s Georgian food.

Food is an experience.

Georgian food can be a hearty chill out under the warm wing of Georgian friends and family in Tbilisi. It can be an apathetic cold stop in Moscow or we’re-hotter-than-you reminder in Brooklyn.

With an indifferent Soviet cold shoulder service — like a naphthalene vapor this one is hard to exterminate, with good Georgian food, and solid UWS prices, Chama Mama made me feel comfortably back at home, simultaneously keeping things in present.

— Very good pkhali selection.

— Nice variation on Adjaruli.

— Solid pork mtzvadi.

— Not too brothy but nevertheless tasty khinkali.

— Fine adjika trio but some versions leaning towards Chinese crisps.

— And a traditional all-Union popular Medovik cake slapped on the table with a traditional all-Union attitude: Here, we’re done.

The movie though! Don’t miss this slow mellow but stirring collection of three family stories written by Jim Jarmusch. Makes you think about your own, the one you’re writing.

#food #diningout #georgianfood #adjaruli #khinkali #mtzvadi #newyorkrestaurant #upperwestside #movienight #fathermothersisterbrother