Location: 1311 Alness Street, Concord
Website: http://suliko.ca/
One thing I’ve noticed while doing this blog is the culinary overlap in various parts of the world. Similarities like steak and egg dishes in Latin America, spicy rice in Africa, or more obvious ones, like noodles in Asia. It’s hard not to notice overlap once you start focusing on the breadth of world cuisine.
The latest (and oddest) connection I’ve noticed is serving bread with a spicy, salsa-like condiment in Eastern European countries — I first encountered this at Moldova Restaurant, and now at Suliko.
In fact, Suliko goes one step further, serving their bread basket with three different salsas of varying spice levels. It’s a tasty — if somewhat odd — combination.
I tried a couple of other things on the menu. First up: hachapuri imeretinsky, which is one of Georgia’s two national dishes (according to Wikipedia, at least).
It basically looks like a pizza, though it doesn’t particularly taste like that dish, with a softer and breadier texture, and a filling that consists solely of cheese. It was quite tasty, particularly when it was hot and fresh, with a nice contrast between the soft bread and the gooey, salty cheese.
The next thing we tried was khinkali, Georgia’s take on the dumpling, and their other national dish.
We tried a couple of varieties: pork and beef, and lamb. They were both really satisfying, with a soupy, meaty interior that features a very distinctive spicing that set it way apart from a typical Chinese dumpling.
The wrapper was also thicker than you’d expect, which actually worked quite well with the strongly-flavoured meat. It probably wasn’t necessary to get two different types of meat dumplings, however — though the lamb dumplings had a mildly lamby flavour, both types basically tasted the same.
Around the World in 196 Plates 