Home TravelCaucasusGeorgia Georgian Adventures, Part 9

Georgian Adventures, Part 9

by Florian
Tbilisi - Gonashvili St. - Bakery

To conclude this Georgian Adventure series, here’s a look at the stores and markets of the capital city, Tbilisi.

Soviet mosaics are an endangered species in Tbilisi. Here is a rare specimen from the Lagidze Café on Rustaveli Avenue. Lagidze is a popular brand of sodas and syrups created at the turn of the 20th century, here is an interesting article about them. When I got there in 2008, the café was already closed, and the mosaic must certainly be gone by now.

Tbilisi - Rustaveli Avenue - Lagidze Café

Bread occupies a very important place in Georgian cuisine, whether it’s a cheese-filled khachapuri or a long flat loaf cooked in the toné, a tandoor-like clay oven. Here is a small booth selling bread in the city center:

Tbilisi - Gonashvili St. - Bread

In my opinion though, the kind of flat bread displayed in the window above is much better when consumed fresh from the oven. I captured the bread making process in the kitchen of a small bakery, the traditional toné replaced with an electric bread oven:

Tbilisi - Vertskhli Street

Below is a storefront on Leselitze Street, the main artery of the old town. You can see breads and pastries of all sizes and shapes, sweet or savory, filled with cheese or meat.

Tbilisi - Leselidze St. - Bread

Of course all this bread requires heaps of flour, and this is literally what you’ll find at the central market. There’s a whole room dedicated to flour:

Tbilisi - Central Market - Flour

I will go quickly over the produce department, since I’ve already shown you so many road-side vendors in other parts of my trip. On display: tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, beets, radishes, eggplants, zucchini, green hot peppers, potatoes, cauliflowers, green cabbage heads, and garlic.

Tbilisi - Central Market - Produce

Here is the meat section. As you can see, offals are well-represented.

We’ll leave Georgia with my own recipe for a “Lagidze” chocolate cream soda. My version is low in sugar and high in cacao powder — feel free to adjust the proportions to your liking!

Geogian Food - Chocolate Cream Soda

Chocolate syrup
Yields 5 servings

6 oz sugar
5 oz water
1 1/2 oz unsweetened cacao powder
1/4 tsp citric acid

  • Place the sugar and water in a saucepan, bring to a boil and cook for another minute, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and mix in the cacao powder and the citric acid. Let cool, transfer to a plastic container and reserve.

Chocolate cream soda
Yields 5 glasses

chocolate syrup
35 oz seltzer water
10 ice cubes
heavy cream, to taste

  • In 12 oz soda glasses, gently stir 4 tbsp chocolate syrup with 7 oz seltzer. Add 2 ice cubes and a dash of heavy cream. Enjoy!

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3 comments

Armenian Adventures, Part 1 « Food Perestroika May 24, 2011 - 21:46

[…] been over a month since I concluded my Georgian Adventures with a look at the stores and markets of Tbilisi. And to start this Armenian Adventures series, I thought I would introduce you to Yerevan’s […]

Reply
Tarkhun, Tarragon Soda « Food Perestroika May 30, 2011 - 13:13

[…] by Mitrofan Lagidze in Tbilisi in 1887, and I already talked about Lagidze’s beverages here, in another post. But it wasn’t until 1981 that Soviet Union started mass production and gave Tarkhun (whose […]

Reply
Daddy Vank February 12, 2012 - 12:18

Tarkhun forever!

Reply

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