It looks incredibly similar to Turkish Pide, which makes sense when you look at a map.
Georgian food is really interesting. Khachapuri made well is awesome – and that seems to have caught on in corners of the foodie internet – but I’m more into stuff like chakhokhbili (herbed chicken stew), lobio (a bean dish), kharsho (another kind of stew), ajapsandali (an eggplant stew), etc. What’s fascinating to me is the wonderful use of fresh herbs. Something like chakhokhbili can have any of the following herbs in it, depending on who is making it: cilantro, parsley, basil, dill, tarragon, summer savory, mint. It’s such a wonderful mix of fresh greenness. When I make it, I typically mix four or five of those together. Another interesting ingredient they have is their Khmeli suneli, which is a dry spice mix used in a lot of foods. The primary flavors there are coriander, blue fenugreek, dried marigold petals. After that, it may contain stuff like black cumin, celery seed, basil, etc., or nothing else at all. I have a bag of it in my cupboard but, unfortunately, all it says for ingredients is “Ingredients: Khmeli suneli.” The general scent of this stuff puts me vaguely in the Middle East, vaguely in Central Asia, maybe even a hint of South Asia, but, while reminiscent, clearly not from any of those three areas. Plus they have wonderful use of walnuts (which I love) in their dishes and sauces.
The wine from region is also quite delicious and different from what you typically get out here. If you’re bored of the same ol’ same ol’, seek out some Georgian wine.
It’s a worthwhile cuisine to explore if you’re looking for something different.
Supposedly beef stroganoff is Russian in origin, but as I understand the typical American version is quite different from the original Russian version.
That all sounds wonderful. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any Georgian restaurants near me. I would probably have to go into NYC to try it.
Yeah, it’s … tough to find. The only places I’ve had it were in Moscow and there was a decent place in Budapest that had Georgian. There’s a very small handful of places here in Chicago, but I’ve never been to any of them. I’ve made it at home a few times.
I like catfish and hushpuppies. 
You know, I only just recently realized that the famous Russian Tea Room in New York serves… Russian food. I don’t know why it never really clicked, I guess I just thought the word “Russian” in the name was just a name.
That said, from what I’ve heard the Russian Tea Room has become pretty touristy nowadays, and the food is pretty mediocre considering what you pay for it.
I have yet to eat at a sushi place so up scale that they don’t forgive Americans clearly new to the cuisine for having less than perfect Japanese etiquette.
If you can manage chopsticks, fine, otherwise ask for a fork or spoon or, with sushi, eating with the fingers is quite common. It’s well known most Americans do not grow up using chopsticks and are pretty crap at it.
The one thing NOT to do with chopsticks is stick them upright in a bowl of rice or other foodstuff - that causes them to resemble incense lit for the dead. When done with your chopstick place horizontally on your plate or beside it.
Don’t worry overmuch about etiquette unless you’re actually going to Japan.
It’s not the etiquette, it’s the fact that sushi is bait. I don’t like rice much, and I generally loathe fish if it isn’t in fish & chips or tuna salad. Seaweed is just that - weeds. So I see no need to even think about sushi, sashimi or pretty much anything else the Japanese think is “edible.”
Same reason I won’t eat organ meats. There is absolutely nothing you could possibly do to it that I would consider making it edible. So if there is a cuisine that relies on those cuts for meals, I’ll pass.
OTOH, I have no problem with raw prime beef. Carpaccio and tartare are both faves. Eh - I’m large. I contain multitudes.
Yeah, and to be clear, that’s common in Japan (if not more common than using chopsticks, from my understanding.) You’re also supposed to dip topping (usually raw fish) side down into the sauce, not the rice side, so as not to absorb too much of the soy sauce. The pickled ginger you’re supposed to eat in between pieces as a palate cleanser. You’re also not supposed to mix the soy and wasabi together. Etc. etc. etc. There’s a good number of etiquette points, but I’ve never seen anyone give a damn what you actually do.
@silenus - Dude, I posted upthread. The Japanese love their panko-crusted pork chops, too! Japanese schnitzel! And their skewered, grilled meats-- yakitori (if chicken) kushiyaki (in general) – (though my favorite are the parts you don’t like – chicken hearts, for instance. But they have “normal” stuff, too. Nothing like sitting at an izikaya, throwing back drinks, peppered with the occasional grilled, skewered meats to keep me happy.) Japanese food goes far beyond seaweed and fish (though those are the points I personally like most). I mean, teriyaki, anyone? Tempura? Soba, udon, and ramen noodle dishes? Gyoza? And, of course, the Japanese curry I mentioned. Sushi/sashimi is just a small (though extremely delicious) part of Japanese cuisine.
When this thread was discussing Russian cuisine this morning, I went and perused the Russian Tea Room’s menus.
They serve plenty of Russian dishes along with a healthy amount of French and American cuisine. Looking at the offerings overall, you could call the Russian Tea Room’s food something a lot like Russian-French fusion.
Maybe it’s because I’m based in Moscow and not St Petersburg, but I don’t recall ever encountering such things. The open-faced buterbrody you can buy at snack bars are commonly slices of salami or cheese on plain (usually dry) whire bread. This has changed in the last few years, though, with Western-style packaged sandwiches becoming quite popular. Sloiki, layered pastries with sweet or savory fillings, are also common street foods. When my daughter was little, she would always ask me to buy some from a kiosk.
Meat-filled boiled dumplings are pelmeni. I’ve had them served with butter, sour cream, and hot paprika. Boiled dumplings with fruit filling or tvorog (pot cheese) are vareniki (from “boiled”).
Pirozhki (diminutive of pirogi, “pies”) are pastries that can be either baked or deep-fried. They’re usually filled with ground beef, ground pork, mushrooms, mashed potatoes, cabbage, spinach, and combinations thereof.
Solyanka (cured meat), shchi (cabbage), ukha (fish), and okroshka (cold kvass) are the most common soups after borshch, which comes in numerous varieties.
All of the above have been popular since at least Soviet times, but older Russian dishes can be quite elaborate. A very high-priced restaurant I was once in had bear meat in a beer-and-honey sauce on the menu. I have a couple of “traditional” Russian cookbooks filled with quite tasty recipes, but none can match that.
Liver is also fairly common. I once had chunks of braised liver in a thick brown gravy at a fairly posh hotel in St Petersburg. It’s also used to fill pirozhki. There’s a chain of cafes called Russkoye bistro that specializes in snacks like these.
Everything you describe sounds fine. I somehow saw a lot of sandwiches, often wrapped in cellophane, that were what I described. Maybe that’s what they think tourists want to eat?
If you’re referring to the packaged ones now sold in supermarkets, convenience stores, and gas stations, those started coming out around 20 years ago (so far as I remember) and caught on fairly quickly. The ones I’ve had are just like those you can buy anywhere else (Canada, US, UK, etc.), so there probably is a preponderance of things like chicken and tuna salad.
Thinly sliced boiled tongue is another common starter. It’s usually served with horseradish and is quite tasty. Just don’t try reassembling the slices on your dish, or you might be put off when you realize what you’re eating. 
(It’s also used as a sandwich filling.)
They weren’t like what i see in the US. They were more mayonnaise-y and the other ingredients were more indeterminate.
I guess i saw them at cafeterias at museums, that sort of place.
That would actually be a step up. When I went to an opera at the Bolshoi back in the '90s, they were still serving the buterbrody I described above at Intermission, along with glasses of warm champagne.
For some reason I’m unable to fathom, Russians also seem to like head cheese (kholodets) and things in aspic in general.
Hmm, buterbrody sounds a lot more appetizing to me.
Not the aspic-y head cheese, though. I may have seen that and not eaten it, too.
I once took a girlfriend on a Moskva river cruise for her birthday. It was advertised as including a “buffet” and “barbecue.”
The “buffet” was actually a bufet, i.e., a snack bar exactly like the one at the Bolshoi (and my institute)—thin slices of salami and cheese on white bread that had been sitting around in the open all day, and warm champagne. The “barbecue” was chunks of grilled pork (shashlik) cooked ashore (you had to get off the boat to collect your meat) and piled on platters for people to pick out for themselves (complete chaos).
When I was teaching English, I had to explain to my students that a buffet in a hotel is not the same as a bufet. The Russian term is the same as in French, au fourchette (“with a fork”). I laughed out loud when one of my students (a Chinese gentleman) told the class that the food at his hotel was “fo’ shit.”