gems Archives | World Food

Off the eaten track: Yeghegnadzor, Armenia

June 25, 2019June 25, 2019
by Jono

Yeghegnadzor is quite an undiscovered little place, with little information on the Internet. Given that we got lucky and ended up having a wonderful time there, this OTET post will have a little more background than just the usual food scene.

Getting there:

Yeghegnadzor is 120km south east of yerevan along the southern highway to Tatev, and as such is fairly accessible.

Mashrutkas (shared minibus) from Yerevan leave every hour or when full from here: 40.1417665, 44.4948234. Take the metro to Gortsaranayin and walk to the circle. Fare should be 1200amd. We hitchhiked from there, as there are a lot of big vehicles going south.

Where to stay:

I almost never post recommendations for places to stay, mostly because we tend to stay in cheap, nondescript places. However, we found an absolute gem which also happened to be one of the cheapest options around – Arpa Valley Cabins. If you are hitchhiking your holiday this perfect little cabin is bang on the major road, but still has stunning views down the valley. At the time of writing the double room was 7600 amd (R230).

Things to do in Yeghegnadzor:

The town itself doesn’t have much to get the heart racing, but there is lots to see and do in the surrounding area.

The Noravank monastery is the most famous sight nearby, a pretty monastery complex with nice cliff backdrops. Hordes of day trippers from the capital complete the picture. Free entrance.

Very pretty monastery despite the crowds.

Nearby, the Areni-1 cave is an important archaeological site, with an ancient winery (approx. 6000 years old) and the world’s oldest shoe being found there. The guy at the entrance will tell you it’s closed, and refuse to say another word. What he actually means, is that its closed UNLESS YOU ARE PART OF A BIG GROUP – so just wait for a bus or something to pull up and join them if he won’t let you in initially.

There are a number of nice wine farms in the area – we tried to visit the old bridge winery twice, but it was closed both times. There is also a nice winery in Areni which was recommended to us, but we didn’t make it there.

The walk from yeghegnadzor to the historical bridge is a wonderful 1,5 km meander through lovely farmland, best late afternoon and evening. Shaded picnic area at the bridge if you want to do lunch there. Trail is well marked and starts here 39.752677, 45.32812, bridge is here 39.741216, 45.324732.

If you have a car, the Yeghegis valley nearby is beautiful to explore and has an unusually large number of old churches, as well as a Jewish cemetery dating from 1200-1300 AD, and a number of Kachkar, or ancient cross stones, dotted around in random places.

If you are into hiking, we did a lovely hike starting and ending at Yeghegis village, with a loop that visits both Smbataberd fortress and 1000 year old Tsakhatsqar monastery. Both sights were totally deserted (we were the only people there), and were much more special than the overrun Noravank monastery.

Views from smbataberd fortress down the Yeghegis valley

Hike was about 11-12km round trip, about 700m total elevation gain, well marked trail, OSM has the tracks. Start here 39.872275, 45.354791. Fortress here 39.872186, 45.338762. Monastery here 39.89026, 45.354008. End in either valley – we chose to go back to Yeghegis because it was easier to hitchhike to/from (more vehicle traffic driving through).

Where to eat:

The section you’ve all been waiting for! Yeghegnadzor and surrounding has almost no resturants, and the one or 2 that are in town are pizza and beer kind of spots.

There is a food court on the main highway south of town (Google “food court”) which serves up decent portions of cheap food – good for refuelling, with no major surprises.

The real gem of the town however, took a bit of searching – we found a little B&B that also serves up incredible home cooked food, tucked away fairly far into the back alleys of the village. The place is called “Under the Walnut Tree”, Google location is correct, but no signs outside – a big silver gate marks the spot. Feel free to let yourself in and go bang on their front door to demand supper if the gate is closed.

Dinner was delightful, clean, fresh home-cooked food, with not a single dish disappointing. The food was well prepared, not at all oily or heavy, and the host was delightful – if her English was a little rusty it just added to the charm of the whole place. The setting was also very nice – a veranda covered in grape vines, with views over the town.

A set menu for 4000amd got us a fresh, crunchy salad, a green bean mezze of some sort, lavash (paper thin breads), local cheese, tomato and bulgar soup, peas with shredded chicken and yoghurt, a chunky meat with tomato thing that was so tender the meat fell apart, home made compote (a cold fruit tea/drink), bottled water, a fruit basket, raspberry cake and fresh herbal tea to finish.

If you make it to Yeghegnadzor, or discover some gem that we missed during our time there, let us know in the comments!

Off the eaten track

Off the eaten track: Tbilisi!

June 12, 2019June 12, 2019
by Jono

Tbilisi is a wild city – crazy surreal architecture, wine bars everywhere, Thai prostitutes running dodgy massage parlours – this city has it all.

And no surprises – Georgian food is incredible. Walnuts, pomegranate, fresh tarragon, plums, spinach, aubergine, sour cream – these are staple flavours that Georgians love and know how to use. We fell instantly and hopelessly in love with the cuisine.

Phkali – the green ones are made from spinach and herbs with walnuts.

Of course, we had to find those hidden gems that served up the best, home-cooked food!

The first night we did some recon and ate at 2 restaurants in Erekle II st, I don’t remember the names – expensive, but delicious and with the full range of Georgian cuisine. This is a good place to start if you’ve just arrived in the country and have no idea what’s what – all of yhe menus in this street have English translations, and most of them have pictures.

Breakfast was the usual yoghurt and cherries in a park somewhere, but lunch was special – we discovered a very cute little “vegetarian” place called Café Leila opposite the Anchiskhati Basilica – reasonable mid-range café with really good quality food, ultra fresh salads, homemade lemonade with fresh herbs, cheap wine and delicious bean stews and pickles.

Supper however – this is where we really found the hidden gem. Café Nikolozi – the perfect family run joint, complete with hand written menus and a wine cellar in the resturant. The directions on Google are correct, but don’t accidentally go into the restaurant next door – this one is underground down some stairs, and only open for dinner.

No English menus though (suits us just fine) but the family could all speak passable English and damn, could they cook. And they could also fill a glass of wine until overflowing, which was awesome.

We started out with aubergines stuffed with walnuts and topped with pomegranate seeds. Moved onto a herb soup with plums and beef. Smashed some meat dumplings along the way, then tucked into a fresh salad with a delicious walnut dressing, before gobbling some chicken cooked in milk and garlic that literally melted off the bone. Topped all of this off with a glass of aged grappa (chacha), and the whole meal (and drinks) cost us about 45 gel (R250).

Georgia you beauty – we love you!

Off the eaten track

Off the eaten track – Mirissa

March 21, 2019April 23, 2019
by Jono

Mirissa! What an incredible place – an unparalleled stretch of beach with hundreds of places to eat, Mirissa really got us excited when we arrived 🙂 Time to go hunting! Read more about Off the Eaten Track here.

The problem with finding food gems in Mirissa was quite simply, the sheer volume of restaurants available. If you are into grilled fresh seafood cooked over an open fire, Mirissa has literally about a hundred restaurants that will do you a stunner of a meal, and being able to sit on the beach with your feet literally in the water is just the cherry on top.

With that said, by the time we’d arrived, we were needing something different, having eaten grilled fish 2 nights in a row. This presented a problem – there wasn’t much variation on the menus here. We had an oily carby dinner one night at Big Belly Roti Hut, which was tasty and filling, but nothing special.

Delicious, local fresh vegetarian food – totally our thing!

For lunch we managed to scout down a fantastic lunch and curry place called Dhana’s curry pot – they serve vegetarian rice and curry buffet for Rs400 – as much vegetables as you want for that price? Amazing!

They had a surprisingly good selection of curries, including 2 types of rice, dal, tomato curry, jack fruit curry, green mango curry, okra, pumpkin, and banana flower curry – all were good, green mango was a tad sour.

The other food gem we discovered was a little café called plantation café in Welligama, on the A2… they had the usual stuff, but also a surprisingly wide selection of other food, and really big, delicious salads – Marna was in heaven 🙂 I had a traditional sri lankan chicken curry in coconut milk, and it was excellent. The chicken was succulent and perfectly cooked, and the portions were generous.

By far the best salad we’ve seen outside Negombo!

If you are planning a trip to Mirissa, do go check out one of the above spots!

Off the eaten track

Off the eaten track – finding hidden food gems!

March 18, 2019April 23, 2019
by Jono

We’ve been wanting to do this for a while – write a post about how and where we decide to eat when travelling.

This is an introduction to a series of posts, each one about a specific town, how we experienced the food, how to avoid tourist traps serving stale overpriced food, and how to eat like a king on a limited budget!

There are a couple of general principles, by no means exhaustive.

Understand the local food culture – this is a very broad statement. Basically what I’m saying here is that you will be able to make more informed decisions about your food choices if you understand what the local dishes are and how much they usually cost. The only way to do this is:
Eat around at a bunch of local places first – this will give you an idea of the general flavours you are dealing with, what you should expect to pay, and what each dish actually is. There’s no shortcut to this one – take the first few days in a country as food research time.
Once you have an idea of what you like and what you’ll be eating a lot of, start being more selective and looking for places that offer something different. Try not to eat the same thing twice until you end up with a menu with nothing new on, by which time you’ll be at step 4 below.
By now you’ll have an idea of the local cuisine, so the key is now refinement – finding the spots that do it exceptionally well or exceptionally cheaply, or that offer you a twist on local flavours – a vegan version of your favourite curry, vegetable juices with unusual herbs, etc. This is the hunt, the difficult part of this exercise, and here we use all the resources available – guide books, google, tripadvisor, local recommendations, etc. We’ve found that TripAdvisor is very useful, but not necessarily for their top choice – finding up-and-coming places with fewer, better reviews is difficult, but rewarding.
Once you’ve narrowed down your choices, take a stroll through town in-between meal times and look at the menus – this is usually the clincher. Think of it as your pre-dinner warm up, get your steps in and earn your supper at the same time!

That’s about it for general principles, upcoming posts will deal with where and what we decided to eat and how we got there!

As a start – go check out where to eat in Mirissa!