San Carlos Restaurant Recommendation: Tamari.

Georgian Cuisine.

We stumbled on a great new San Carlos restaurant that is certainly worth a shout out. Truth be told, we didn't actually “stumble” upon this great place — I picked up on it from a very well written feature in the Scot Scoop, Carlmont High School's news website — which, by the way, also deserves its own shout-out as an excellent source for local info. Kudos to the staff of the Scoop for consistently excellent writing.

But this article is about Tamari. They set up shop at 1152 San Carlos Avenue, which for those of you long-time San Carlos residents will recognize as the location of another favorite restaurant – San Remo's. How much do we still miss ol' San Remo's???

The fare at Tamari is authentic Georgian — as in Georgia the country, not Georgia the state. Having absolutely no experience with Georgian cuisine, this was somewhat of a leap outside of my culinary comfort zone, so I asked the owner for recommendations. She steered me to the khinkali, which is clearly a specialty of there's. (If you like dumplings, these will knock your socks off). In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle highlighted Tamari's khinkali as one of the best frozen foods that you can order to-go, and take home and prepare. But since preparing khinkali at home actually requires kitchen skills, lest you bust open the dumpling, I will be leaving that to the experts.

The khinkali was excellent – think of it as a mini-soup all wrapped up in a dumpling, and you can pick from lamb, beef, or mushroom fillings. You could almost make a meal out of just that. But we also tried the kupati, which is traditional Georgian beef sausages. They were very flavorful, with very unique spices. The wine list features some pretty tasty Georgian wines to accompany the food as well.

All in all, the food was great, and it was so nice to sit outside again and enjoy a meal. I highly recommend checking out Tamari. They have injected some much needed culture and diversity into the San Carlos food scene, and I'd love to see them thrive — especially at a time that is so challenging for all of our restaurants. If you decide to check it out, or have already been there, post your experience in the comment section below.

Bon Apetit!