Bordering Bath Beach, Mtskheta Café pumps out Georgian classics in a green-hued, faux-brick dining room, complete with paper napkins, a campy jungle mural and TV looping foreign music videos. While the décor may be lacking, the service and food excel, setting this impossible-to-pronounce restaurant apart from the nearby bodegas and elevated subway tracks.

Whether or not you can deduce what’s on the Cyrillic-scripted menu, friendly servers stand by, directing guests to native dishes like badrijani, an almost overwhelming helping of eggplant stuffed with walnut purée. But oh that fried khinkali, a homestyle dish composed of browned dumplings filled with broth and a beef meatball. Once dipped into sour cream, it's worth every second of the 30-minute wait.