S07.E05: Tbilisi, Georgia

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Sidekick Zamir Gotta temporarily upstages Bourdain in this tour of the mountainous Eurasian country Georgia, featuring the cities Tbilisi, Batumi, and Khurvaleti (bordering Russia), with traditional dishes that include spicy chashashuli stew, chkmeruli at Café Gabriadze and an epic meal at the Black Lion. On the political front, acclaimed journalist Tamara Chergoleishvili (Tabula magazine editor-in-chief) offers Bourdain an insider’s POV of her country’s changing views.

Clip:

 

Edited May 23, 2016 by ElectricBoogaloo

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Bourdain's blog on Georgia

Bourdain and Anderson Cooper discuss Georgia:

Edited May 23, 2016 by ElectricBoogaloo

[biakbiak]

The entire Zamir storyline was completely ridiculous. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I agree - Zamir's segment was a total waste of time. Did Bourdain find Georgia so uninteresting that he needed an extra ten minutes of filler for this episode?

[biakbiak]

I was inspired by the food for some reason so tonight I made Chkmeruli, the garlic chicken featured in the show and it was tasty, next up the cheese bread!

[Athena]

Tony really likes Zamir. I question the audience's overall opinion of him. With the exception of episodes in Russia, Zamir can be a nuisance on the shows. In the case of the Romania episode, he caused a trainwreck as a fixer. I still remember how unhappy and dreary everything looked in that episode. 

The rest of the episode was nice. I found it amusing that somehow Tony had the meal with the government official in the end because basically, she and her friend were hot. Having said that, it did look like a nice meal. In fact, all the food looked really good and @biakbiak , thanks for letting us know. If you could share the recipes, even better. :)

[biakbiak]

33 minutes ago, Athena said:

Tony really likes Zamir. I question the audience's overall opinion of him. With the exception of episodes in Russia, Zamir can be a nuisance on the shows. In the case of the Romania episode, he caused a trainwreck as a fixer. I still remember how unhappy and dreary everything looked in that episode. 

The rest of the episode was nice. I found it amusing that somehow Tony had the meal with the government official in the end because basically, she and her friend were hot. Having said that, it did look like a nice meal. In fact, all the food looked really good and @biakbiak , thanks for letting us know. If you could share the recipes, even better. :)

Oops I thought I posted it. Here is the recipe I used for the Chkmeruli.  I found this one for Khachapuri but I haven't had a chance to make it. I had an old coworker who would always bring the Khachapuri to work events, she was from Georgia, and it was delicious.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

10 hours ago, Athena said:

Tony really likes Zamir. I question the audience's overall opinion of him. With the exception of episodes in Russia, Zamir can be a nuisance on the shows. In the case of the Romania episode, he caused a trainwreck as a fixer. I still remember how unhappy and dreary everything looked in that episode. 

Ha, I totally agree. It reminds me of a friend of a friend who is a musician. Often his opening acts are people who he likes personally but they're not always musicians that his audience likes. He likes being a supportive friend and giving them the opportunity to perform but I think he genuinely believes that if he likes them, everyone else will too (which is not always the case). I see something similar with Tony and Zamir. He obviously loves spending time with Zamir so he thinks that we like watching Zamir's antics because he assumes that his audience likes what he likes. But I feel like whenever Zamir pops up these days, they create reasons for him to be there or they chose specific situations so that Zamir can be Zamir. It's not that Tony wouldn't go to a strip club, for example (especially since we've seen him go to strip clubs in previous episodes), but if Zamir hadn't been with him for this episode Tony probably wouldn't have gone this time. And that's the biggest problem I have when Zamir is on the show. It always feels like they are always setting up locations specifically for Zamir instead of for the show.

[buttersister]

Getting things backward, I'd discovered Georgian cuisine before realizing this ep had aired (after a lecture by the author of The Taste of Persia---the book also features some countries along the silk road). That led me to this website with lots of of food culture info and recipes. And no Zamir.