Taste of Georgia

As at many Georgian shops there's a glassed-in display of assorted salads, but the focus is on the bread; the single word in Georgian script, at the center of the awning, means "bakery." And though it employs a traditional stone oven to prepare several varieties of khachapuri, the elongated bread called shoti seems to be the best-seller. A brace of shoti are pictured on the awning, and inside, behind the counter, they were racked like cordwood.

Taste of Georgia
1637 East 18th St. (Kings Highway-Quentin Rd.), Homecrest, Brooklyn
718-336-5556

Comments

[Harvey Fishman]

Dave, first of all that's not Homecrest. That's Midwood. Second, there is another Russian bread shop on East 17th Street between Avenue P and Kings Highway. I've never been in there, but I see it from the bus all the time. And it looks very busy. I do not think that they actually bake there, but there is a long list of their wares on the awning.

Harvey

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The shoti is awesome, it's like a loaf of really good brick-oven pizza crust. The midwifery that delivered our kid is near there, and we'd sometimes grab a loaf "to take home" that was halfway gone by the time we got on the subway a couple of blocks away.

The Ruissian bread bakery on 17th (called.. uh.. "Russian Bread") does something completely different (and less unusual in these parts): the various (Russian, Ukrainian, Lithianian) rye breads, Mitteleuropan peasant loaves, and dense wholegrain bricks fortified with sunflower seeds. While here in the US "Russian" sometimes actually means Ukrainian, Baltic, Uzbek (or Georgian) often via Jews from the respective countries, the stuff at the Georgian bakeries in those parts generally sticks to the Caucasus thing.

Speaking of Russian-Ukrainian-Lithianian-etc. Jewish bakeries, the Kiev on the same stretch of Kings Highway has some mighty fine cakes and honey cookies.

And as for old-school deli Adelman's, they still make a worthwhile pastrami sandwich, but not much else IMO.