What’s Food Club? Well, the first rule of Food Club is we don’t talk about Food Club. Ha ha, just kidding! :p Food Club is just a bunch of us friends who are adventurous eaters. We want to eat our way around all the different world cuisines in San Diego. We meet up every few weeks and eat some food that are new to us.
Last Sunday 4/29 our Food Club met at Pomegranate Russian-Georgian Restaurant in North Park. None of us had ever had Russian food before, and this restaurant had a good recommendation from another friend, plus good Yelp reviews. 
They had a wacky menu with funny descriptions and commentaries. 
There was a four-salad sampler that we all got to try a little bit. I loved the beet salad! 
Here we were. But Todd’s taking the picture so you can’t see him. And you also can’t see Ryan. 
So we asked our waiter to take a photo of us. There, that’s better! Ryan, Shannon, me, Todd, Roby, Dejah, and Maria. 
Todd and I shared all our food. We started out getting these Pelmeni, which were Siberian meat dumplings, garnished with yogurt-dill-garlic sauce. These were good! 
Then for our main entrée, we shared the Chakhokhbili, which they dubbed the “Georgian Eagle”. This had large pieces of chicken simmered with onions, tomatoes, lemons, basil -- plus, of course, the chef's secret spices.
My portion of Chakhokhbili. 
Almost everyone else got this: the Shashlik. Basically grilled meats. They didn’t have the lamb on Sunday so it was just pork loin and chicken. 
For dessert, we shared the Babushka's Surprise: Baked apple filled with sweet fruits, walnuts and honey. The apple was actually marinated and quite tart, and provided a good contrast to the ice cream. Although, the sauce on the ice cream was tart too! 
It was a really nice dinner! I was surprised that Russian-Georgian food was pretty good. (Don’t know why I was surprised, I just was.) And I really enjoyed the company and the social aspect of trying out new foods together with our friends. Long live Food Club! I think for our next adventure we’re going to try out some food trucks. Or we may go South American this time and try Peruvian. :)
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Love the idea of a food club. I enjoy trying different food. I'm the one you recently recommended the Ramen place to when I was in San Diego. I really enjoyed it! We have an Ethiopian restaurant in our town that I keep meaning to try. Hope you have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteMmmmmm ... all looks pretty tasty! I've tried shashlik before (when I lived in Germany there was a local Balkan reastaurant that served it), the salad sampler is a great way of trying new dishes, a little of lots of different flavours, without too much risk!
ReplyDeleteI've come so close to coming here! THey have the best reviews! I'm[ not an adventurous eater though and their descriptions and your pix make the food look so uknown! someday....
ReplyDeleteMy grandma's parents were Czech, but lived in Russia. They are the ones who immigrated to the US and my grandma is a great cook, so I grew up eating some Russian food that they incorporated into their Czech foods. Kolaches and borscht were the two biggest. How cool that you got to try it. I'm an adventurous eater, but being a vegetarian limits it quite a bit.
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