Georgia on my mind, again

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No, I’m not thinking Ray Charles, as great as he was. And no, I’m definitely not thinking of a state in the world’s newest despotic nation. The Georgia on my mind here is new and located in Wales… and no, I’m not talking yet another embarrassment on the world rugby union stage either. This Georgia on my mind is a fabulous new addition to the cuisines available in the heart of Cardiff.

Georgian food doesn’t seem to be widely available on my travels (though post 489. ‘Georgia on my mind’ outlines a first encounter in Riga, Latvia). And did you know… Georgia just happens to be the oldest wine producing region in the world… so what’s not to like here.

Genatsvale has only been open since summer 2025, and on a quiet Thursday afternoon it provided the perfect setting for two people sharing a love of all things Georgia. The menu displayed outside the entrance already establishes authenticity… why succumb to dumbing down to the bland repetition of so many town centre eateries when you can have something genuine and different.

The wine list also testifies to a certain confidence in what they do… you’ll not find anything that isn’t originally sourced in Georgia… and those 8000 years of practice shine through in today’s bottles! That Qvervi Saperavi bottle just happened to be the most expensive of four reds also available by the glass… very important as you realise time is gently passing by and one bottle just isn’t going to be enough to do it justice.

As for the food, well there is the essential Georgian dumplings… the Kinkhali, made with a variety of fillings. We went for the beef & pork and the lamb (chicken and vegetarian options are available). Don’t forget to ask the waiter how to eat these things, or life might get a little messy. And be prepared to wait, and sample that wine, because these delights are prepared to order…

Pkali was something I hadn’t heard of before… large enough balls of pate in four flavours, but forget everything else you’ve experienced in life and just let the beetroot version take you to somewhere else altogether.

But even that was surpassed by the delicate balance of tastes involved with the Mushrooms in ketsi. The mushroom and melted cheese might just recalibrate your taste buds in ways you never thought possible.

And, getting back to that Qvervi Saperavi… somehow 5 or more hours seemed to pass by in no time. Yes, good company invites a sense of a complete loss of time, but good wine smoothes the whole process in ways that a cup of tea never seems to be quite enough.

Until we speak again, Georgia is on my mind. Ray Charles might well be talking about a place that fortunately stood up to the bullying of the Chief Narcissist of Untrustworthy Land, but I’m currently very interested in a very small plot of real estate right in the centre of my own city. Now, if anyone could also play that grand piano in one corner of the restaurant…

Aparatus of the State

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On a further visit to the incredible city of Berlin it was time to focus more time on the old east side.

Visiting the DDR museum gives a general picture of daily life under a dictatorship, particularly shortages of what we in the west saw as basics of good old consumerism.

Then there were the ‘incentives’ of such things as artificially cheap housing. But nothing came without at least a subliminal message of menace.

But it’s the Stasi Museum that truly brings home that chilling effect of the ‘Aparatus of the State‘.

Who’d have known that a job with the Government came with essential perks such as snitching on your neighbours, listening in on phone calls, bugging apartments. Even breaking in to apartments just to move items of furniture around… well, how else is paranoia going to foment.

Special departments were even set up to check on the loyalties of fellow employees.

In the end certain freedoms became too much to resist and contain. The greatest emblem of the aparatus… the Berlin Wall also needed to come down. Though fortunately, a lengthy strip remains as the East Side Gallery… the largest outdoor art gallery in the world.

Until we speak again, the Wall conveys many important messages that we’ll do well to remember… particularly in the deranged times of Trump trampling over basic civil liberties at home and across the world.

Hwyl meets hygge

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Its February. Its cold. It feels like its been wet forever. So what… here in Cardiff the traditional hwyl of Wales has been amplified with a splendid addition of hygge from Denmark…

Brod (pronounced Breuhl so I’m reliably informed) has been here in the city and Penarth for coming up to 10 years. Leafy Pontcanna is the longest established, followed by Penarth, and more recently on James Street in Cardiff Bay. All are supplied by their own bakery in Rhymney.

Okay, so I’m not one of the world’s early adopters. But, I have to say, on this occasion, I admit I’ve been missing out on something.

First, there’s the delightfully named Mad Brod for a lazy Sunday morning breakfast treat. A soft, light bread with this version covered by bacon and brie. [Today’s Observer newspaper helpfully provides proof of life, so to speak 😂]…

Alongside the Mad Brod, the above photo also includes a sweet version of proper Danish Pastries… this one being a Ginger, Rhubarb and Custard Spandauer. The following is the stanard-bearer Custard Spandauer from a previous visit (believe me, you really don’t just make one visit to Brod 😍).

If hygge is a Danish form of cozy, contented warmth on a winter’s day, it combines well with the Welsh sense of hwyl being a welcoming sense of joy in the moment. How better to relax and enjoy those quieter, slower moments in life.

Until we speak again, if you want a Danish pastry you really need to go to a Danish bakery and coffee shop. Those things our home-based bakers and supermarkets call Danish pastries… just aren’t by comparison.

The sourdough bread looks pretty good as well 😋

NOLA: UK-style

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With all the antics of the King of Dumbfuckistan in Washington DC, supported by his Mental Agility’s Gone Away (MAGA) movement, my regular visits to NOLA simply had to stop. So, it was to my great delight on a current trip to (proper) York that I find NOLA has come to me…

With an upstairs restaurant and occasional downstairs jazz venue, the New Orleans essence is there to be fully experienced.

On the menu, right out of Louisiana, we have Jambalaya, Gumbo, Cajun Monkfish, and Creole Dirty Rice…

Creole Brioche Bread Pudding can only be accompanied by the classic Sazerac cocktail…

And yes, a few jazz classics sublimely finish off the perfect vibe…

Until we speak again, the only let down comes when you leave the venue, luxuriating in the many wonderful New Orleans memories… to step into a cold damp January UK night.

Berlin remembers, do we?

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100 years on from the Weimar Republic, Berlin has much to remember. From Weimar to Third Reich to a divided city to the Fall of the Wall. Has any other city witnessed, experienced, suffered, and emerged from so much in such a relatively short time?

One woman immortalises the changes in a statue that is calling out for peace before the Brandenburg Gate.

The most significant remembrance surrounds the plight of Jews, in Berlin and across Europe. The Jewish Museum in the West Kreuzberg district is a Daniel Libeskind design, most disorientating in architecture, as its floors and walls disobey the builders spirit level. But its content is a creatively laid out history of Jewish faith, culture, and history.

For a particularly deep chill, spend a minute or two in the dark and claustrophobic Holocaust Tower…

However, for heightened emotion the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe provides a space for reflection and imagination. The undulating topography accommodates a dense array of grey concrete pillars of differing heights…

Walk deep into the sculpture and be immersed in your own thoughts. Then visit the enclosed museum beneath the sculture for heartbreaking personal accounts of the effect of the Third Reich across Europe.

On the site of the former Gestapo Headquarters now stands an open air monument to the history of division in the city, running alongside a remaining fragment of the infamous Berlin Wall. Known as the Topography of Terror, it depicts the major changes of the last 100 years, and horrific consequences of those changes.

The division of the city is particularly well represented in the Friedrichshain district of old East Berlin. Here is the longest fragment of the former wall. At 1 mile in length it’s considered to be the world’s largest open air gallery. East Side Gallery is a feast of modern art. What better way to democratise a former harsh symbol of division…

Until we speak again, Berliners have shown a remarkable capacity to remember its tragic recent history with vibrancy and humour. 100 years on from the ugly emergence of the Nazi Party in Germany, is the rest of the world once again failing to learn the lessons of history?

With the Chief Narcissist of Dumbfuckistan in Washington buddying up to Psychopath One in the Kremlin, and the rise of populism in every western nation, we need the current day messages from Berlin more than ever before.

All that Jazz!

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So, my lovely reader, you now know Berlin has a penchant for the Christmas Market… or Weihnachten Markt, as the locals say. Is that all you think I spent my precious time doing? Drinking Glugwein (inc. a Weiss beer version), eating Bratwurst and that lovely smoked salmon?

So, the sound of Berlin has always had that underground bohemian vibe (or perhaps that’s just me). Think the Sally Bowles character in Cabaret (or perhaps that’s just me). The challenge… should I accept it (or perhaps that’s… forget that bit)… is to see if the modern Berlin lives up to its historic reputation.

First stop… A-Trane. Well, I’ve only just arrived a few hours ago. How’s a guy supposed to hit the ‘bohemia’ ground running (or, perhaps that’s just me)?

Perhaps not underground, exactly. But, the overground version provided a great intro to the local jazz scene with Andreas Schmidt and friends doing a regular Monday night slot. Something of the avant garde style to welcome me to the sound of Berlin.

Getting genuinely down underground you need to shift along the alphabet a space. B-Flat, is a club in the Hackescher Markt area. An unassuming entrance and staircase leads you into more traditional jazz territory… subterranean (or perhaps that’s just me).

Nothing traditional about KRiSPER, an electric jazz ensemble. Playing just their own compositions, with superb musicianship. There was a definite wow factor to the atmospheric style of their music (or perhaps that’s just me).

Then, keeping that overground-underground feel… The Hat Club feels like it belongs in that Cabaret-era of 1930’s kind of thing, competing with the sound of trains overhead (or perhaps that’s just me)…

It’s a nightly jam session in one of those rare places that permits smoking throughout 😷 Initially very lounge sounding (or perhaps that’s just me). But as the Vieux Carre cocktails slipped down the sound distinctly blocked out the rumbling of trains overhead (or… well, no not that… it does occupy a railway arch… ah, you didn’t see that one coming).

Until we speak again, falling off the chair, after too many local beers and fab cocktails, is permitted (or perhaps that’s just me!!!!!!).

Frohe Weihnachten

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Berlin in December… I wonder what’s occurring? It seems they take their Christmas Markets very seriously. You can hardly move for stumbling across a Weihnachten Markt!

Staying close to the famous Potsdamer Platz, it’s where the world’s first traffic light confused people… and still does:

Only now it’s surrounded by, you guessed it, a Weihnachten Markt…

So I drifted towards the equally famous Alexanderplatz, to find???

But, before I could even get there I navigate the famous Gendarmenmarkt square with its…

And the potentially famous Humboldt Forum with its…

The grand setting of Schloss Charlottenburg hasn’t been spared…

Neither has the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtnis Kirche, it would seem…

Until we speak again, apparently, I’ve only scratched the surface. So, when in Berlin do what the Berliners do (I wonder if they do anything the rest of the year, or just recover until its Weihnachten Markt time all over again?)…

Chez Juno

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Juno might well have been a cool urban cat. Born and raised in London, then transported by her servant to Cardiff. But she knew inner city living was shared with a variety of interesting characters. Borrowing from a Hollies song of the 1960’s… look through any window, and what do you see…

An energetic little thing getting some training in for the pet olympics, maybe…

Then tempting a dangerous eyeball to eyeball vibe…

With a ‘kiss my furry ass‘ touch of insolence…

Then, with topical timing, up steps one of the ‘calling birds’ of Christmas fame…

With a distant relative playing a poor game of hide and seek…

While the inexperienced youngsters are simply peering into dangerous places…

Looking beyond the immediate window, the 2025 brood are snacking outside the local dockside One Stop Shop. Hopefully, they dispose of their plastic rubbish after the hearty meal…

While the local heron just waits… and watches… for the next meal to swim by unexpectedly…

Until we speak again, Chez Juno remains a place of natural wonder deep in the heart of the city. But wait a minute… who’s this imposter?

Turkish delight

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Is it a Byzantium? Is it an Istanbul? No, it’s a Constantinople. For more than two millenia Ancient Greek, Roman and Ottoman rulers have laid claim to a dramatic area of real estate straddling the divide of the great continents of Asia & Europe.

But this post has got nothing to do with that. This Constantinople is an altogether younger affair… a piece of culinary real estate straddling a length of pavement in Brighton.

The spoils of dramatic conquest are however no less celebrated. Here, the slaying of animals, fish and vegetables, are presented in exquisite combinations. With a range of international options for toasting the sacrificial offerings, the Turkish choices of Efes (beer) and Sevelin Kalecik Karasi (wine) are recommended, for the sake of authenticity.

As for dining, tonight I choose to decimate the lamb population. A starter of Arnavut Cigeri presents an Albanian dish of fried lambs liver accompanied by potato, green pepper, and red onions.

As plenty of the aforementioned sacrificial offering remains, I choose a main dish of Buryan Kebap… a bonelees lamb shank with Syriac sauce.

I can only say, Larry, as many a lamb has been known to be named, didn’t die in vain. Such a sacrifice will remain firmly emblazoned on the memory… at least until the next memorable meal.

Until we speak again, Contantinople offers a gracious welcome to all.

A pavement in Brighton will suffice, unless you have a hankering for turf that claims territory in both east & west (continents that is, not Sussex).

The wonders of Tunisia

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For a whistlestop tour Tunis and surrounding area provided a great insight to the history and culture of this fascinating country… the most liberal of Arabic nations. Independent since 1956 and more recently experiencing the Jasmin Revolution of 2011, Tunisia is an open and very welcoming country.

It does plenty of very old. From the Medina…

… to Carthage…

Then there’s the hustle and bustle. From the Tunis souks (but so deserted at night)…

… to the attraction of Sidi Bou Said blue & white village…

Indigenous fresh street food often panders to those with a sweet tooth. From dates or almond Makroud in the Souks…

… to fresh and extremely light Bambalouni donuts in Sidi Bou Said…

And, of course, they do the sea big time: fresh calamari as well as fish and chips (red snapper) with a twist. Not forgetting options for roof terrace fine dining (duck & lamb dishes at Dar El Jeld)…

Until we speak again, a few days sampling the delights of Tunisia might well result in you declaring…