Our first visitor this summer, a Welshman & former grad school buddy of my PIC’s from his Chicago days got in at 6:30am (!), and he’d asked if he could hang with us until his Airbnb person could let him in at 5pm 
. Well, duh!
He’d lost a fairly new straw hat either on the plane, or left it in his car at the airport, so I did a quick google search & located a spiffy hat store in the same cute nabe where I buy my tights. Our friend found the perfect match & can now protect his scalp while traveling Germany, Switzerland & Italy for a month — which is good & necessary bc he very recently had some malignant skin cells removed.
The area with the hat shop’s got a lot of fun little boutiques, cafes, restaurants & bars, too, and since it was getting close to 2pm, we decided to grab a smashburger for lunch & a scoop of ice cream for dessert.
Dinner was at a Georgian place a stone’s throw from our buddy’s Airbnb that I discovered while looking for places easy to reach for all of us, and this got good reviews.
We had to get the badrijani nigvzit (eggplant rolls with walnut paste) bc I am obsessed with them — in fact, they may just be my favorite Georgian appetizer if not overall fave dish. This rendition was good, if a bit on the salty side.
Our buddy ordered a Georgian pear lemonade that was cloyingly sweet, whereas my dood and I stuck to draft beer.
We split the atcharuli khachapuri (my PIC’s fave), and the tabaka, i.e. “grilled chicken with a homemade sauce.”
The kchachapuri was alright. We’ve def had better at other Georgian places in town, and the chicken was fine. It wasn’t lamb, tho 
, which we probz shoulda ordered instead…. especially since the guys decided we’re going to the fried chicken place mañana. 
I tried to convince our buddy to take home a slice of the walnut honey cake, but he resisted.
