When you are traveling there are always high points and low points during any given day. Maybe there was a bad taxi ride one day that balances out the great pics you took earlier that morning. Perhaps one delicious meal saves an otherwise boring day of travel and waiting around.
So we were a little amazed to have what we would consider a perfect day on the last full day of our trip.
We were still on the relaxation pattern, starting with a nice slow breakfast at our hotel while watching great bad music videos. My appetite was back and I was more hungry than I have been the entire trip, and I meant to take advantage and eat as much good food as we could before our return.
We started with a quest to eat pelmeni. Pelmeni is really a Russian dish, tiny dumplings served with some sort of sour cream or cream sauce. We ate a lot during our trip to Russia, but it seemed fitting to have at least one Russian dish while we were this close to Russia. Kuniko had remembered seeing someone eating pelmeni at a restaurant we had passed the previous day, and so we set out to find it.
For the first time the whole trip, we found what we were looking the first time we tried, and it was open. Pelmeni was on the menu, and we also ordered some grilled chicken with a sour honey sauce, two cold beers, and two glasses of Mukuzani red wine. The pelmeni was served in a little different style, in a small pot with bread baked over the top like a little hat, but the flavor was great and it went well with the red wine.
We sat outside and watched the tourists passing by, and it seemed to us like there were even more tourists in town during the weekday than we had seen during our weekend here. Afterwards we walked back to the hotel with a slight buzz to pack for our departure the next day and also wait out the heat of the afternoon.
Next stop was searching out some more khinkali – it seemed like that would be a great last dinner in Georgia. Kuniko had researched an interesting place and we walked along the opposite side of Shota Rustaveli Avenue, past the beautifully painted Opera House, and then down some steps to Duqani Lagidze 2 (I don’t know where 1 is). The place was again in the basement, and designed in a modern style that seemed playful and a little feminine. We ordered a plate of ten khinkali, a bowl of chicken stew, and some bread, and also had a couple of glasses of local beer called “Black Lion” that were pretty good. We ate the khinkali using only our fingers, holding each one by the nipple and eating around them until we finished. Five little nibbled nipples were remaining on each of our plates when we finished. The soup was really good too – salty and rich and perfect to dip into with the homemade bread that came with it. These khinkali were our favorite of the trip, and we were rubbing our contented stomachs with happiness as we left the restaurant.
To wrap everything up it seemed like we should go drink some wine, and we ended up back at g.Vino on our favorite street. This time there weren’t any outdoor tables available when we arrived, so we set up in the warmly decorated interior and ordered some glasses of red wine, and a plate full of local cheeses and honey. The atmosphere inside was comfortable and I felt like I could come there every night for a glass of wine – exploring Georgian wines at a slow pace sounded like a lot of fun.
At last we figured it was time to head back and get some rest. We ended on a very good note with the wines – they were delicious, and we couldn’t have been happier with all the food we ate on our last day. I’m glad my appetite finally came back to join our holiday.
