Domku has the casual feel of a community center, with mismatched couches and chairs, a small bar, even a game room in the rear, replete with pool table. And on Wednesday evenings, the bill of fare extends to live music. "I wanted a homelike environment," Carpenter says. Her neighbors will find just that.
Poland RPCV Kera Carpenter opens "W Domku" restaurant in DC
Transatlantic Crossings
By Tom Sietsema
Sunday, June 19, 2005
**(of four stars)
"I didn't know she was opening a restaurant, and she didn't know I was a chef."
Eric Evans is recalling how he met his current boss, Kera Carpenter, at a neighborhood meeting over a year ago. Carpenter, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Poland, was interested in opening a restaurant in the District's Takoma area, and Evans, a stranger, had come to support her request for a liquor license. Months later, the two ended up joining forces, transferring her concept to Petworth and broadening it with some of his input.
For Evans, W Domku, which loosely translates from Polish as "in the little house," is a bit of a homecoming. "I was born in Petworth!" he says with relish. The food he is making these days is pretty familiar to him, too, though his last cooking job was completely different, at the defunct downtown steakhouse Jordans. When Evans was a youngster, his parents sent him on chaperoned trips to Norway, Denmark and Sweden, he explains. "They thought it was a better education." Good call, I think to myself when my order of meatballs is placed before me. Soft, soothing and draped with a light gravy, they get a splash of color from some bright red lingonberries.
Pow! For those who choose to drink aquavit, the liquor so potent it brings to mind liquid barbed wire, dinner begins with a bang. The clear vodka is infused with the likes of caraway, rose petal, dill, vanilla, red chili or --- my favorite --- lemon grass and ginger, and offered by the shot or a flight (three glasses) for $16.
Aquavit turns out to be a nice foil to the subtle flavors on the small menu, whether beet soup or a serving of sprats, silvery baby herring eaten with rye crisp, sweet mustard, chopped onion, capers and gherkins. The potato-and-bacon-filled dumplings known as pirogiO are tame but tasty, their tops slicked with sour cream. A pink slab of smooth pate, ringed in gently sweet aspic, would look at home on an elegant buffet; a couple of plump browned sausages on carrot-laced sauerkraut prove homey and strapping. Of the sandwiches, I'm most drawn to crawfish, fennel and bell peppers bound in lemony mayonnaise and tucked inside a baguette.
Domku has the casual feel of a community center, with mismatched couches and chairs, a small bar, even a game room in the rear, replete with pool table. And on Wednesday evenings, the bill of fare extends to live music. "I wanted a homelike environment," Carpenter says. Her neighbors will find just that.
In late January, an inviting Eastern European-style cafe opened in Petworth. Owner Kera Carpenter decorated her Domku Bar & Cafe with a mix of traditional and modern Swedish furnishings, such as white pine floors, crystal chandeliers and comfy sectional sofas. The menu features flavors from the Baltic and beyond.
"It's a little bit of everything -- a neighborhood meeting place, a bar and a cafe with a Scandinavian/Slavic menu," says Carpenter, who grew fond of the cooking in those regions while serving for three years in the Peace Corps in Poland. The cafe's Polish name means roughly "in the little house."
The kitchen is under the command of neighborhood native Eric Evans, who makes the popular sandwiches of kielbasa, blue cheese and watercress ($6.95), spicy grilled white cheddar cheese with cilantro and chili peppers ($5.95) and Finnish cold cured beef ($7.95). At lunch and dinner, there's carrot ginger soup ($3.50) a gravlax on greens salad with pine nuts ($7.25) and, of course, Swedish meatballs with mashed potato and lingonberry preserves ($13.50).
The bar specialty is house-made aquavit -- vodka flavored with herbs, spices or fruit ($6 for a single shot, $16 for a flight of three flavors). The classic caraway aquavit is a good place to start before moving on to dill or lemon grass-ginger. Nine Eastern European bottled beers are available ($6 each). Add a shot of sweet and fruity black currant, cherry or raspberry syrup to your beer for 75 cents. "That's very Polish," says Carpenter.
