GEORGIA ON MY MIND
By Steve Koppelman
Broward New Times, FL
Nov 15 2006
>From the Caucasus to the shore, it’s time for some post-Soviet soup.
Ah, beach food. Corn on the cob, hot dogs, freshly shucked clams.
Pizza, burgers, and ice cream. There’s nothing better after bobbing
in the ocean waves and baking in the sun for hours, is there? Along
Hollywood’s Broadwalk, beach food also means tacos al carbon, Turkish
falafel, empanadas, and French-Canadian fare, reflecting the diversity
of Broward’s most democratic beach. Since early this year, it also
means khachapuri, lobio, kharcho, and lyulya kebab with tkemali sauce.
Hollywood Grill bills itself on its sign in English as an Armenian
restaurant and in Russian more broadly as a restaurant of the
Caucasus. Owners Zina and Hovick Grigoryan, hailing from Georgia and
Armenia by way of Brighton Beach, bring a bit of Eastern Black Sea
resort to South Florida.
At first glance, you might wonder what would bring such unusual fare to
a beach cafe here, but it makes perfect sense to South Broward’s and
Northeast Dade’s growing community of emigres from in and around the
former Soviet Union. You’ll usually also find some of it on the menus
at upscale "Russian" restaurants from Los Angeles and Brooklyn to Club
Pearl in Hallandale Beach and a half-dozen others around Sunny Isles,
where it provides the same sort of accessible exoticism Italian food
adds to many "all-American" menus these days. But most relevantly,
Armenian, Georgian, and Azeri food long ago became standard fare for
cookouts, vacations, and wine- and garlic-fueled nights throughout
that region.
An ideal introduction to what the food of the Caucasus is about
comes in a bowl. One of several soups, the kharcho ($6) stands out,
the best version I’ve had in years. Much more than a lamb-and-rice
soup as most menus and cookbooks translate it, a good kharcho is
a mildly spicy soup redolent with walnuts, garlic, perhaps dried
cherries, and most importantly a blend of herbs and spices called
khmeli-suneli, which includes coriander, marjoram, fenugreek, mint,
and dill, lending it a flavor like nothing else except perhaps other
Armenian and Georgian food. Another lamb soup, piti, was enjoyable but
less dramatically seasoned, built around larger, milder-tasting pieces
of meat and chickpeas in place of the rice and bits of vegetable.
As you might expect from a beachside cafe specializing in the foods
of a region that borders on Turkey and Iran, kebabs abound. Lamb
kebab ($10) and kofta-like ground-meat lyulya kebabs ($8) were fine,
particularly the lamb, reddened by a spice mixture, perhaps adzhika,
a fenugreek-spiked pepper paste with origins in Georgia. They come
accompanied by a choice of fries, lightly buttered rice, or our
favorite, olive-oil-infused roasted potatoes dusted with garlic and
herbs. The kebabs were best enjoyed wrapped in a strip of (alas, not
locally made) lavash with some raw onion and a dab of the included
satsabeli sauce, a distinctly Georgian/Armenian sour-plum-based
condiment tasting of dill, garlic, and coriander.
An order of chicken satsivi, a cold, mild dip made of shreds of
boiled chicken in a pale-yellow ground-walnut sauce, however, was
more pedestrian. Something seemed missing, maybe the bit of peppery
zing I’ve encountered before. Belhoor ($8), a kasha variant of cooked
cracked wheat topped with sauteed mushrooms and a bit of broth, could
have used a bit more flavor – and gravy – for my taste as an entree,
but as a side dish for the table, it would do just fine.
On another visit, we stumbled early. A handwritten sign in Russian
taped to a window read "KHASH season has begun." I ordered a bowl,
though the waitress did her best to try to talk me out of it. "Some
people really like it…" Wrinkled nose. "Others… don’t." An austere,
virtually unseasoned bowl of khash – pork broth; fatty, cartilaginous
bones; and chewy pork skin – landed with accompaniments. Following
instructions, I stirred in a couple of tablespoons of freshly
grated garlic, bits of toasted lavash, and some granulated white
powder from a small bowl that the waitress said was salt, even
though there was already a shaker on the table. I tasted a dab,
and it was salty, but I hesitated. I went ahead and added some. Then
more. Then some pepper. Then more of both, until finally it was sort
of OK in an exotic, adventure-travel kind of way but not actually
enjoyable. Definitely an acquired taste. The waitress did get a
bit misty-eyed talking about how her mom would make it when she got
sick. Among other things, it’s a folk remedy, especially for broken
bones. My companion and I gave it our best. We each had a few more
spoonfuls before giving up, the broth slick with what we decided on
the way home, guzzling bottled water, was actually MSG, a seasoning
I’m fine with in moderation. Let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t finish
off the bowl.
The rest of that meal had enough highs to make it more than worthwhile,
though. The lobio appetizer, which also makes a fine side, was a
scrumptious, extremely refreshing kidney-bean salad, strewn with
crushed walnuts, minced garlic, parsley, dill, and an Armenian staple,
pomegranate seeds, all lightly dressed in oil and vinegar. Sorry,
Mom, but the fiancee liked it even more than your terrific three-bean
salad. Their khachapuri (kha-cha-POO-ree), a Georgian word that
translates as "cheese bread," is represented here as an airy,
flaky filo-dough pie filled with firm, buttery cheese. It was good,
but I’d been hoping for a stuffed-bread version with warmer melted
cheese inside. Hinkali – meat dumplings – offered another geography
lesson. The tennis-ball-sized pouches of thick dough with a massive
ball of oniony meat filling looked and tasted like something from
Northern China or a dim sum cart, and leftovers the next day were
right at home with a splash of soy sauce, a reminder that the Silk
Road carried more than just fabrics and spices.