Ethnic Food Project

Taqueria Distrito Federal is a small restaurant colorfully decorated in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C. that offers carryout, delivery, and dine-in. There is a small outdoor seating area and a small basement-style indoor seating area. We dined outside on their small but nice patio on Cinco de Mayo. The Taqueria is open early and late and serves breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a special weekend menu. Among the traditional weekend items are menudo (a hominy and tripe soup), pozole (a pre-Columbian ritually significant soup of nixtamalized cacahuazintle corn, various meats, and seasonings), and tamales. Mexican cuisine can be divided into six groups, reflecting the six regions of Mexico, which comprise different climates, geography, and the different cultures of Mexico’s indigenous peoples, as well as the impact of Spanish colonization. Northern Mexican cuisine’s meat staples include beef, goat, ostrich, and the arrachera cut. The Yucatan region’s dishes are sweet instead of spicy, a result of their beekeeping history and the importance of honey, and typically use achiote seasoning. The Oaxacan region is celebrated for its tamales and moles. The West is known for its goat (birria or goat in a spicy tomato-based sauce). Central Mexico is known for barbacoa, pozole, menudo and carnitas. Finally, Southern Mexico, due to its proximity to the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, has spicy vegetable dishes, chicken dishes, and seafood dishes. Within individual villages, even more exotic and unusual dishes can be found with exotic meats, depending on local ingredients.

Taqueria Distrito Federal’s daily menu includes tacos, burritos, tostadas, quesadillas, tortas, and several platters featuring sausages and meats. We tried the tacos and a torta, but read some interesting background information on tamales, burritos, tostadas, and quesadillas.

The history of the tamale actually is quite long:

Tamales originated in Mesoamerica as early as 5000 to 8000 BCE. Aztec and Maya civilizations as well as the Olmeca and Tolteneca before them used tamales as a portable food, often to support their armies but also for hunters and travelers. There have also been reports of tamal use in the Inca Empire long before the Spanish visited the new world.

The burrito, or large taco, originated in Mexico and translates to “little donkey,” probably because the burrito resembles either the ear of a donkey or resembled the packs that donkeys carried. Wikipedia discusses the history of the burrito:

Mexican popular tradition tells the story of a man named Juan Mendez who used to sell tacos in a street stand, using a donkey as a transport for himself and the food, during the Mexican Revolution period (1910–1921) in the Bella Vista neighborhood in Ciudad Juárez. To keep the food warm, Juan had the idea of wrapping the food placed in a large home made flour tortilla inside individual napkins. He had a lot of success, and consumers came from other places around the Mexican border looking for the “food of the Burrito,” the word they eventually adopted as the name for these large tacos.

Burritos are a traditional food of Ciudad Juárez, a city in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, where people buy them at restaurants and roadside stands. Northern Mexican border towns like Villa Ahumada have an established reputation for serving burritos, but they are quite different from the American variety. Authentic Mexican burritos are usually small and thin, with flour tortillas containing only one or two ingredients: some form of meat, potatoes, rice, fish, beans, asadero cheese, chile rajas, or chile relleno.

The tostada is simply a toasted taco (the traditional taco is soft, not hard). Some say the tostada was developed as a way to use stale tacos. The tacos were deep fried to make them crunchy again. However, now tostadas are entrees in their own right, and often are served like a pizza and open-faced.

Finally, the quesadilla (or cheesy tortilla) is traditionally is a folded tortilla filled with oaxaca cheese and cooked until the cheese melts. The American version of the quesadilla (the two flour tortillas with various fillings in between them) is actually the Mexican sincronizada, which is two flour tortillas with cheese and ham sandwiched to them. The version of the quesadilla most Americans know is the Tex-mex alteration of the sincronizada, which is filled with beans, various types of meat, sour cream, etc.

We tried the tacos at the Taqueria Distrito Federal and they were  small, but the perfect amount of food (since we were served several tacos). The toppings were avocado, cilantro, radishes, cucumbers lime, etc., giving them a fresh taste. They had a variety of fillings, including:

• Al Pastor (Beef and pork)
• Carnitas (Pork)
• Carne Asada (Grilled steak)
• Chorizo (Mexican sausage)
• Lengua (Beef tongue)
• Barbacoa Chivo (Goat)
• Barbacoa Res (Beef)
• Pollo (Chicken)
• Costilla Puerco (Baby Pork Ribs)
• Tripa (Beef tripe)
• Chicarron en salsa verde (Pork skin in green sauce)

We also learned some interesting facts about the taco. The taco predates the arrival of Europeans in Mexico and there is evidence that tacos were originally eaten with small fish. The Spanish called this indigenous food the “taco,” although the reason why is unknown. Although originally the taco was eaten with fish, today’s fish and seafood tacos were created in Baja, California. Also, tacos dorados (“golden tacos”) are what are also known as flautas or taquitos and are traditionally Mexican and Puerto Rican. The original taco was soft and the creation of the hard taco (with its infamous U-shape) was first discussed in 1949 in a cookbook. However, it did not take off in popularity until New York restaurateur Juvenico Maldonado patented a machine for mass-producing the hard taco in 1950.

We were particularly interested in trying the torta, which we were unfamiliar with. A torta is a is a Mexican sandwich served on a French roll with various fillings. The torta is not native to Mexico, and according to Chelsie’s Mexican Food blog, the French influence during the 1800s made bread from flour a Mexican staple and lead to the rise of bread as a staple and bakeries, or “panaderies.” We ordered the milanesa de res torta, which is a meat fillet that is breaded and fried. This dish is common in South America, although less common in Mexico, and also is not a native dish. This dish was brought to South America by Central European immigrants and is similar to weiner schnitzel. We found the sandwich tasty and the milanesa to be surprisingly lean. Our sandwich was also served with lettuce, tomatoes, avocados, etc.

Our combos also came with a choice of beverage and could choose from aguas frescas, soda, and Jarritos. Aguas frescas translates to “fresh cold waters,” and originated in Mexico. These drinks are typically sweet fruit flavored drinks, but can also be made with various seeds and be creamy. Taqueria Distrito Federal offers horchata, tamarindo, marañon, coco, and jamaica. Horchata is milky and contains cinnamon and vanilla, often made from rice. Tamarindo, one of the most popular flavors, is made from the cooked tamarind and is one of the sour fruits. Marañon translates to cashew apple, the fruit that the cashew comes from. Jamaica is hibiscus, referring to the flor de Jamaica. We tried the jamaica, and found it fragrant and very sweet. We also tried the soda, which turned out to be Mexican Coca-cola (which contains cane sugar, not high fructose corn syrup) and comes in a bottle with the nutrition facts crudely affixed to the bottle. Mexican Coca-Cola did taste a lot better than American Coca-Cola, which justifies this New York Times article on the “Cult of Mexican Coca-Cola.” They also had a variety of Jarritos, which is a brand of soda in Mexico (“jarritos” means “jugs” and comes from the Mexican tradition of drinking liquids in jugs). Jarritos are less carbonated than American sodas and currently are the most popular soft drink among Latinos. Jarritos began by offering a coffee flavored soda, and soon moved to tamarind and now offers a variety of fruit flavored sodas.

We ended our meal with dessert of the day, which was also a part of our combo. The dessert that day was flan (we also heard it is always flan), which was a tiny slice but actually the right size since we were pretty full. Flan was originally French, and must have come to Spain and thereby Mexico that way.

Note: They do not serve alcohol here. We brought our own tallboy of Tecate in a brown bag. They didn’t say anything to us…so either they did not notice or did not care.

TOTAL: about $9.50 excluding tax/tip (for a combo that includes entree, drink, and dessert)

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Domku Bar & Cafe is an adorable restaurant that truly made us feel as if we were transported to someplace other than Washington, D.C. Domku is the diminutive for “in the house” in Polish, and the interior is homey and decorated with vintage wingback chairs, couches, chandeliers, coffee tables, and foam-mounted posters from Poland. Some of the other diners were there when we arrived and still there when we left. The Cafe had a casual neighborhood lounge feel. In addition to Polish food, the menu also offers many Scandinavian specialties and an exotic cocktail menu. Wikipedia states that Polish food is heavy in meat, cream, winter vegetables, and noodles, which was an accurate description of much of the food we tried. Also, “According to 10th century chronicle by Abraham ben Jacob, Poland was abundant with all sorts of ‘grains and meats and honeys and fish.’” One interesting aspect of Polish food is that it encompasses several diverse and distinct culinary traditions, specifically Lithuanian, Jewish, German and Hungarian cuisine. Also, although Polish food is associated with a robust use of the potato, cereal grains are actually more traditional, specificially kasza (a.k.a. kasha). Wikipedia also describes the changes in Polish cusine as a result of World War II:

For most of the year the Poles had to get by with only domestic winter fruit and vegetables: apples, onions, potatoes, cabbage, root vegetables.This situation led in turn to gradual replacement of traditional Polish cuisine with food prepared from anything available at the moment. Among the popular dishes introduced by the public restaurants was an egg cutlet, a sort of a hamburger made of minced or instant egg and flour. The traditional recipes were mostly preserved during the Wigilia feast (Christmas Eve), for which most families tried to prepare 12 traditional courses.

The appetizers we ordered included Fried pickled herring, Twarog (farmer’s cheese) smorrebrod, and Placki ziemniaczane with gravlax. The Fried pickled herring turns out to be a Swedish specialty, also known as Stekt strömming. The fried pickled herring was served at room temperature and topped with gravlax and vegetables. It was tart, savory, and tasty for those who like pickled herring. The Twarog (farmer’s cheese) smorrebrod was like a cucumber sandwich, Polish style. Twarog is a fresh white cheese common in Eastern Europe, best likened to a ricotta in flavor, but drier and more solid (the Polish variety is apparently even drier and more solid than other Eastern European Twarog). Placki ziemniaczane with gravlax are potato pancakes served with smoked salmon. Placki is the Polish term for potato pancakes and there is a lot of regional variation in the preparation of pancakes (in Silesia and Beskydy they may be oven-baked rather than fried). Ziemniaczane is Polish for potato, and gravlax is the Polish term for smoked salmon (lox) is gravlax. The predominance of gravlax might be an indication of the Scandinavian bent of some of the food at Domku Bar & Cafe. These were thinner than we predicted, crispy, and savory.

The entrees we ordered were Bigos Warszawski, Swedish meatballs & mashed potatoes with lingonberry preserves, and Stuffed nalesniki (cheese). According to Wikipedia Bigos is:

A savory stew of cabbage and meat, there is no standard recipe, as recipes vary considerably from region to region and from family to family. Typical ingredients include fresh and fermented white cabbage (sauerkraut, kapusta kiszona in Polish), various cuts of meat and sausages, often whole or puréed tomatoes, honey and mushrooms. The meats may include pork (often smoked), ham, bacon, beef, veal, sausage, and, as bigos is considered a hunters’ stew, venison or other game; leftover cuts find their way into the pot as well. It may be seasoned with pepper, caraway, juniper berries, bay leaf, marjoram, pimento, dried or smoked plums and other ingredients.

The Bigos Warszawski at Domku Bar & Cafe was very thick and contained carrots and sausage. In the Polish epic poem Pan Tadeusz the members of szlachta are described eating Bigos returning from hunting:

In the pots warmed the bigos; mere words cannot tell

Of its wondrous taste, colour and marvellous smell.

One can hear the words buzz, and the rhymes ebb and flow,

But its content no city digestion can know.

To appreciate the Lithuanian folksong and folk food,

You need health, live on land, and be back from the wood.

Without these, still a dish of no mediocre worth

Is bigos, made from legumes, best grown in the earth;

Pickled cabbage comes foremost, and properly chopped,

Which itself, is the saying, will in ones mouth hop;

In the boiler enclosed, with its moist bosom shields

Choicest morsels of meat raised on greenest of fields;

Then it simmers, till fire has extracted each drop

Of live juice, and the liquid boils over the top,

            And the heady aroma wafts gently afar.

The Swedish meatballs & mashed potatoes with lingonberry preserves were rich, hearty, and delicious despite the fact that they were not Polish. However, the Stuffed nalesniki we also ordered is a traditional Polish food. Nalesniki translates to pancake in Polish, and is similar to a crepe and can be served either sweet or savory. These were served savory and filled with cheese, kasza, vegetables, and cream. They were incredibly rich. Apparently nalesniki have also been adopted in Russia and the Ukraine.

We also sampled the wide array of drinks and had dessert (bread pudding and beet cake). The bread pudding was not Polish. The beet cake was an interesting usage of an ingredient common in Polish food, to be reserved for those who genuinely love the taste of beets. The drinks offered at Domku are impressive and they have a large bar featuring Polish beers, aquavits (Scandinavian), unique cocktails, and seasonal beverages (we tried to get the mulled beer, but they were out). They have a huge amount of options, including elderflower cordial, Becherovka herbal liquor, lemongrass ginger aquavit, etc.

We also learned that pierog is singular and pierogi is plural, so saying “pierogis” is double pluralizing.

Note: Call ahead if you are set on a certain item, like pierogi, as they were out of several items when we arrived.

TOTAL: $130, excluding taxes and tip (three appetizers, three entrees, four cocktails, three desserts)

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