The Bay Area’s first Georgian restaurant opened a little over two months ago. I checked it out for lunch since I was in Palo Alto for a meeting. Note the qvevri in the photos.
Assorted pkhali ($10). The beet was pretty good but I think Punchdown’s might be better. Spinach and eggplant were OK but I’ve had better in San Diego and at Punchdown’s popups.
Beet salad ($14) was tasty if not very Georgian. Could have used more beets and beans.
That would have been plenty of food for two, I took half of it home. Looking forward to going back for dinner to try some of the meat dishes with wine. I might go back tonight if it were in Oakland instead of Palo Alto.
This time around the best thing on the sampler platter was the satsivi, shredded chicken in a fantastic walnut sauce with lots of those Georgian herbs. Looking forward to getting a full order of that sometime.
The eggplant rolls were also very good. The pkhali were kind of boring, maybe undersalted. The Punchdown’s beet pkhali is definitely much better.
Beef tolmas were great, served warm. There were four in the order. The intensely garlicky sour cream was too much but we polished it off with other dishes.
By chance the owner of Blue Danube, which imports many of the Georgian wines you can get in California, was there doing a tasting so we had some great wines.