Our Thanksgiving plans changed for the first time in about 30 years, and we decided to head up to Philadelphia to eat at Gamarjoba and then see the seasonal lights at Longwood Gardens.
Gamarjoba (means ‘welcome’ in Georgian) was open for Thanksgiving and serving their regular menu.
We started off with a couple of staples found on every Georgian table, a plate of pickled vegetables and pkhali, vegetable stuffed with walnut paste. This included stuffed red pepper, eggplant rolls, and two terrines: beets and green beans. First three were an outright success, with the green beans being boring. For a do-over, I wonder if they would swap out the green bean part for any of the others…
We went on to the kachapuri (kacha=cheese, puri=bread) the boat shaped version with cheese, butter, and a raw egg swimming in the boat. This was a good, not great version.
Our next two dishes were a skillet of big, fat mushrooms broiled with cheese and a larger skillet of chicken schmeurli. The chicken was on the bone with the skin blackened before being drowned in a creamy, bubbling garlic sauce. Both were very well done.
The only interesting dessert we had was a poached pear on a big cloud of thick clotted cream decorated with a honey drizzle and a some fat blueberries. Fun stuff.
Thank you for sharing! A lot of overlap with the NYT’s recent best 25. I loved Kalaya when we went, which was luckily before Phil and the NYT ruined it for everyone and they packed up for Fishtown.
Incidentally, LaBan’s son goes to school in our town, so he visits often. Recently he was impressed with the cocktail menu at my favorite watering hole
Yeah, probably not going to happen. I find other Georgian foods far more interesting than khachapuri, and we had our fill in Berlin in the summer where there are many Georgian places to choose from.
and they packed up for Fishtown.
