Armenian food has a lot of elements that might already be familiar to many from other Ottoman cuisines. Items featured at the festival included lamb and chicken kebab (served in platters off the skewer at the festival, these kebabs were prepared in bite-sized chunks), hummus, cheese pies, dolmas, and baklava.

Advantour describes one key element of Armenian food: the importance of meat and diary:

Armenian Cuisine is as ancient as its history, as the land it is standing on. Armenian

culinary traditions are over 2000 years old. The abundance of meat on Armenian tables is the result of the most ancient development of cattle breeding in Armenian uplands which led to such a variety of livestock and poultry. Cattle breeding was also the source of various dairy products – basically brine-ripened cheeses as well as sour-milk products which serve as the basis for traditional Armenian dishes and beverages.

We ordered stuffed peppers (stuffed with ground beef, rice, vegetables, herbs, and spices), tepsi boreg (baked pastry made of phyllo dough filled with feta cheese and shredded mozzarella), khadayif (dessert made with shredded phyllo, sweet cheese, and simple syrup), and kurabiya (four-based cookie shaped like a diamond or the letter “S”). They also offered eech (bulgur salad), kebab, hummus, yalanchi (stuffed grape leaves), Armenian style green beans, and more.

Stuffing is apparently a feature of Armenian food, according to Armenian Cuisine on Wikipedia, which notes:

In addition to grape leaves, Armenians also stuff cabbage leaves, Swiss chard leaves, eggplants, zucchini or squash, tomatoes, peppers, onions, potatoes, various meats (particularly organ meats), whole fish, apples, quince, and even cantaloupe.

We really enjoyed the tepsi boreg, which also seems to be common in Turkey since we found a lot of Turkish sites referring to it. This is a cheese pie filled with feta, but the pastry is also soft and almost lasagna-like in the middle. It was cut as a rectangle. Our other cheese pie, the triangle boreg, was filled with muenster and had a crispy phyllo crust. We probably have never met a cheese pie we don’t like.

The food festival had an impressive spread of desserts. Since one of us has a prohibitive nut allergy, we ended up only getting those desserts that did not contain nuts. This included choreg, which is brioche-like bread that was filled with cheese. It wasn’t sweet, but was more savory. This was also available in a twisted variety and this bread is common in the Ottoman Empire countries and is often served at Easter. We sampled a cookie called kurabiya, a sweet and simple cookie which reminded us a lot of Greek kourambiethes and other Middle Eastern cookies we’ve come across. Finally, we also tried khadayif (or kanafeh), which we’ve also seen in the Middle East (especially during the end of fasting at Ramadan). This one had cheese in it and was soaked in syrup and topped with vermicelli noodles. We would have liked to try some of the other desserts, which looked very interesting and unique, but were prohibited by their nut content.

The festival ends on Saturday, Oct. 22, so we recommend going to St. Mary’s, if possible, because this might be the only place to sample Armenian food in the area.

Toki Underground is a tiny and trendy walk-up restaurant in the H Street Corridor (Toki can refer to a Japanese clan, various fictional characters, a city, a train, a video game, etc.). It has a neat skateboard themed interior and gets so packed that it’s hard to find a place (it is tiny, too), so if you want to go it is a good idea to go early. Apparently everyone loves ramen, and there is a lot more variety to it than beef or chicken. In Japan, almost every locality in Japan has its own variation of ramen, from the tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen of Kyushu to the miso ramen of Hokkaido. Toki Underground‘s is tonkotsu style (aside from the vegetarian ramen).

According to Wikipedia, ramen is actually Chinese in origin. No one really knows when ramen was introduced to Japan and where the word ramen came from. Wikipedia has this to say about the history of ramen:

After World War II, cheap flour imported from the U.S. swept the Japanese market. At the same time, millions of Japanese troops had returned from China and continental East Asia. Many of these returnees had become familiar with Chinese cuisine and subsequently set up Chinese restaurants across Japan. Eating ramen, while popular, was still a special occasion that required going out.

In 1958, instant noodles were invented by Momofuku Ando, the Taiwanese-Japanese founder and chairman of Nissin Foods, now run by his son Koki Ando. Named the greatest Japanese invention of the 20th century in a Japanese poll,[1] instant ramen allowed anyone to make this dish simply by adding boiling water.

Beginning in the 1980s, ramen became a Japanese cultural icon and was studied around the world from many perspectives. At the same time, local varieties of ramen were hitting the national market and could even be ordered by their regional names. A ramen museum opened in Yokohama in 1994.

There are several different types of ramen, but Toki Underground specializes in one type: tonkotsu. This is ramen with a cloudly white colored broth made from boiling pork bones, fat, and collagen over high heat for many hours, which suffuses the broth with a hearty pork flavor and a creamy consistency that rivals milk or melted butter or gravy (depending on the shop). Most shops, but not all, blend this pork broth with a small amount of chicken and vegetable stock and/or soy sauce. Although these noodles are typically straight, they aren’t at Toki Underground.

We tried Curry Chicken Hakata, and it was delicious! Also, completely different than commercially prepared ramen that we are used to. This ramen was almost decadent and the addition of egg and fried and seasoned chicken was incredible. Wikipedia writes this about the Hakata style:

Hakata ramen originates from Hakata district of Fukuoka city in Kyūshū. It has a rich, milky, pork-bone tonkotsu broth and rather thin, non-curly and resilient noodles. Often, distinctive toppings such as crushed garlic, beni shoga (pickled ginger), sesame seeds, and spicy pickled mustard greens (karashi takana) are left on tables for customers to serve themselves. Ramen stalls in Hakata and Tenjin are well-known within Japan. Recent ramen trends have made Hakata ramen one of the most popular types of ramen in Japan, and these days several chain restaurants specializing in Hakata ramen can be found all over the country.

We didn’t receive the straight noodles, ours was more the classic ramen we’d expect. They also have dumplings and dessert – but the ramen was plenty for us.

Ren’s Ramen

We were craving ramen, but didn’t feel like driving to H Street and then finding Toki Underground completely packed. So we went to Ren’s Ramen in Wheaton, M.D., which is a small and simple restaurant that also serves ramen. They also have convenient hours (11:30a.m. – 10:30 p.m. on most days). At Ren’s Ramen, you pick your soup base (miso, tonshio, shoyu, or vegetable). The non-vegetarian soups come with pork and noodles. You then pick your extra toppings – we ended up picking seaweed, corn, and egg. The egg is infused with soy sauce, we think, and is served soft-boiled. They have a few sides, but not many. We seriously contemplated ordering more ramen to go, but were pretty full.

When we sat down, we were immediately brought an appetizer of soy beans, puffed rice, and beaten rice (a.k.a. flattened rice). We’d never had rice prepared in a beaten or flattened form. It was hard and chewy, and mixed really well with the soybeans and puffed rice – in fact, we had to stop ourselves from eating the whole plate ravenously. This type of rice is eaten in Nepal, and Bangladesh. It’s made by flattening dehusked rice grains. The rice can be reconstituted with water or a liquid, and the flattening makes it a convenience food and easier to prepare. Soybeans grow readily in Nepal, so they are also part of the cuisine.

For our appetizer, we ordered Samaya Baji, which on the menu was described as “beaten rice with roasted meat, smoked fish, boiled-then-fried egg, black soybeans and diced ginger. (usually a customary food in Newari culture).” We wanted to try something customarily Nepalese and avoid dishes that seemed to be Indian crossovers. We were pleasantly surprised by the colorful dish that arrived, complete with more soybeans and beaten rice. We really enjoyed how tasty it was and how interesting all the components of the dish were, particularly the hard-boiled and then fried egg, and the fish. We recommend trying this appetizer. By the way, the Newa people live in are an indigenous people from the Kathmandu Valley, where they have lived since prehistoric times. Their cultural community is mostly Tibeto-Burman, but also Indo-Aryan, and they speak their own language (Nepal Bhasa/Newari).

For our entrees, we ordered a lamb curry that came with rice. This food item was similar to Indian curries and came in a tureen with white rice. We also ordered one of Nepal’s national dishes: momo (we ordered the Himalayan Kothey: Delicious dumplings stuffed with ground chicken and Tibetan spices, wrapped in flour dough and then steamed before pan fried, served with hot chutney sauce). Momos are dumplings, and according to Wikipedia:

Momos are a traditional delicacy in Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Darjeeling district and Ladakh. They are one of the most popular fast food in Nepal and many other South Asian region populated with people of Nepali origin and people of hilly origin. They are also common in places with noticeable Nepalese and Tibetan diaspora, such as Assam, Delhi, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal.

They can be either steamed or pan fried, and ours were both. They came with an orange sesame sauce and a coriander sauce. They are apparently a very popular menu item, because lots of people around us also ordered them. Since we’re used to having dumplings as appetizers, it was different to have a huge platter of dumplings. They tasted very similar to other types of dumplings, but the filling wasn’t dense and they were spicier and more flavorful. The dumpling wrapper was also a lot more tin than a typical Chinese dumpling.

Although the dumplings and the curry were good, they weren’t nearly as unique and interesting as our appetizers. Next time we go back, we might order only appetizers.

They also have a fixed price menu, coupons on their website, and free delivery within a 2 mile radius. Delivery Nepalese food is pretty awesome.

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)

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)