Bill and I didn’t go out yesterday because we were waiting for my contact lenses to be delivered. The driver didn’t get to us until late afternoon. When he did, one of the lenses was the wrong prescription. It’s very convenient to be able to order my lenses from Amazon.de without having to mess with eye exams, but sometimes there’s still human error when it comes to ordering them online.

Bill ended up making roasted red pepper and Brie soup with fresh, homemade bread. We paired it with a lovely white wine from Italy. Here are a few photos…

Although the weather is pretty crappy today, we decided to venture into Frankfurt to try a Georgian restaurant called Pirosmani. Regular readers might remember that last year, before we moved to Wiesbaden, we tried an excellent Georgian restaurant in Stuttgart called Tshito Gwrito. We were bowled over by the food at the Georgian restaurant in Stuttgart and hoped to be similarly impressed by Pirosmani. This restaurant is near the Frankfurt Zoo, as well as a large parking garage, so getting there and parking is super easy. Making reservations is also easy, since they are on OpenTable.

I lived in Armenia for two years. Armenia is just south of Georgia and the cuisine is kind of similar. I haven’t found any Armenian restaurants in Germany yet, but Georgian food is somewhat accessible. Frankfurt has at least two restaurants featuring cuisine from this country in the Caucasus. Edited to add, my German friend Susanne has done her best to find Armenian restaurants for me. They do exist here, but some of them are German or Russian hybrids.

We arrived about twenty minutes early for our 1:00pm reservation. Although the place opened for lunch at 11:30am, there wasn’t a soul in there. We had to climb stairs to get to the dining room. On the first floor, there is a cigar bar, nicely decorated with Georgian bric a brac. Georgian wines are wonderful and, I’m sure if I liked to smoke cigars, they would go very well with tobacco.

We waited in the empty dining room for a few minutes and Bill stuck his head in the kitchen to alert the staff that we were there. A small, black haired woman came out and snapped at Bill in German that she’d be right with us and not to come behind the bar. I must admit, I was a bit put off by her abrupt attitude, particularly since Bill had been friendly and we were waiting for several minutes to be acknowledged. She seemed kind of bitchy, which only invites me to respond in kind. But she ordered us to hang our jackets on the coat racks in the back of the dining room and take a seat at a two top next to a window.

I could hear Russian pop music, along with some music that could have been Armenian, Georgian, or Turkish– I couldn’t hear the lyrics closely enough to tell. I just felt like I was back in Yerevan. The dining room is very formal looking, but the music is definitely casual. Bill wanted to order a bottle of wine, but they didn’t have any that was dry. We settled on a “halb-trocken” (semi sweet) red from Georgia. Our surly waitress brought out some insanely delicious bread and butter and we ordered our first two courses.

I started with Sazivi, a cold dish of fried corn fed chicken served with a sauce made of crushed walnuts and saffron. The chicken was basically cut up, complete with bones. I liked the walnut sauce, which was a bit rich, but had sort of a spicy kick to it. I had to watch how much I ate, though, since I followed up with pork “shashlik”, basically marinated pieces of pork served with roasted and pickled vegetables. Bill had tschichirtma, a hearty chicken soup that had a whole piece of chicken in it, complete with bones. He followed it with tschaqapuli, a lamb stew in tarragon white wine brew, refined with fresh herbs.

While we were waiting, another party showed up. There were four of them, and they sat in a corner. There was another party of two at the back of the restaurant. I noticed the waitress seemed to relax a bit and warm up once she saw us enjoying the food, pictured below.

We really did enjoy the food and the atmosphere, which was kind of classy except for the table full of linens in front of our table. The waitress was rolling them into napkins. The service could have been better. The waitress didn’t replace soiled silverware, nor did she have a particularly friendly attitude. I totally understand being surly when you’re waiting tables, but I was puzzled by her lack of warmth. In my experience, Georgians are warm, like Armenians are. Oh well… maybe the yucky weather put her off.

We spent 102 euros on lunch. It was a bit pricey, particularly since it wasn’t dinner, but we had plenty to eat and the food was mostly good and a nice change of pace. The dining room seems fancier than the overall atmosphere is. I would probably go back again, although I hope for a somewhat nicer waitress. I notice they offer a business lunch deal, as well as three hours of free parking. We didn’t take them up on the free parking, although we probably should have. Maybe we’ll try Old Tiflis next time. It’s Frankfurt’s other Georgian restaurant.