I came hungry; I left hungry and annoyed.
When I heard that Domku, a Slavic and Scandinavian restaurant in Petworth, the fringes of Northwest DC, had a monthly pierogi night I was thrilled. My grandmother whose family hails from Solvakia made the potato, sauerkraut, or meat stuffed dumplings. She taught me how to make them. But all that kneading, rolling and stuffing takes all afternoon. I have never made my own.
I plugged the event into my calendar a three weeks ahead of time. When 5:45 pm the day of role around, I called up to Domku. I asked them if we could get a table in a half hour. She advised us to wait until 8pm. I waited and held off snacking for the promise of pierogi. I and the other half of We’re Out of Here arrived at the restaurant at 8:15. While the long arm of gentrification has reached neighboring heights, only its fingertips have touched Petworth. The restaurant is the sole touch of quaint in what remains ghetto.
After deciphering Domku’s white-on-white glass sign, we walked in. The place is charming: exposed brink walls, miss-matched furniture and a mobile made out of sticks.Only about half of the tables were filled, but we stood entrance for five minutes before getting the waitress’s attention.
The waitress steered us to seats at the bar. She offered to take our drink orders but just disappeared. We sat there examining the menu for 20-odd minutes before I managed to flag her down again. I opened my mouth to order the pastry stuffed with lamb and pine nuts. She stopped me, took the list of daily specials and crosses out all but two things, the rice pastry and the cabbage pierogi, and dissapeared again.
After some ordering and some more waiting our food, the cabbage pierogi, the rice pastry and some sausages, appeared. Unfortunately, our silverware did not. I snatched some from another table, and we dug in. Despite the waitress’s reassurance that the cabbage pierogis were her favorite thing on the menu (We suspect she is a vegetarian, meaning that her opinion can’t be counted), they were bland. So was the rice pastry. But to Domku’s credit, not much can be done with bread, rice and cabbage.
We tore through the food. Still hungry, I ordered dessert: poppyseed role, another Eastern European food my grandma made. It never came.
As we waited another 15 minutes for our check. Meanwhile, the waitresses stood near us complaining about that night’s customers. One, she said, was demanding, but friendly, and left no tip. I was tempted to do the same. However, I put down a generous 5% and walked out.
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[...] used to — stuffed with potato and cheese. I’m also a fan of the saurcraut. With my last attempt to find pierogis in DC not going so well, I’ll be scooting over here early on Friday. [...]