We're right outside of Detroit in the town called Hamtramck and we're going to
Polish Village Cafe that's still holding on to its heritage.
Hello it smells amazing in here
How long you cooking in here? - Ten years because I come in America ten
years ago and come here nd this only - Only here - Only here
You was a teacher in Poland how many - - How many years, 27 - 27 years you move like how you see your
- I did small children - Okay - This is for pierogi for potato pierogi. Make dough.
- Later make ball, we cook potato and make peirogi
- And it can be either boiled or fried This is the famous potato pancake and you make the dough
from scratch - Yes. This is potato this is eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and mix together
it's dough for pancakes. - Lots of pepper too - Yes tastes good!
- You put sauce? - Sour cream. Sour cream or apple sauce. - There you go my first Polish
pancake. My favorite part is this crispy texture on the outside but inside nice
and soft. A ton of pepper that comes through. A perfect amount of salt and then that
sour cream just cuts to the fattiness of the of it being fried - One me, one you.
- Fast, fast, fast. One more. And, like this
- Order up in the window still eat now
Polish village cafes is authentic through and through. There's not a
table that is that is empty in this place and you guys are busy - Yes very busy
- Your grandparents were the first to come over from Poland - Yes they came to
the United States of America in 1900s - They chose Detroit as their spot
- Well they originally started off in Ohio and then migrated to Detroit for jobs
I'm guessing during that time Detroit was hustling and bustling - Yes yes the
auto industry was really taking off so there was lots of jobs for people
- How did Polish Village Cafe come along - Polish Village started as a gentlemen's
hotel with a dugout basement our family remodeled it in the 70s and brought in
the Polish food. - What's a gentlemen's hotel? - It was a place for bachelors. They
all live together in a common space and it was so they you know people weren't
as isolated back then. They worked, they came home, they drank a few
beers in the dugout bar and they were kind of a family. - How did they get the
opportunity to take over a place - The bar was up for sale and my dad
remembered it from his youth - he used to shine shoes here when he was
about eight or nine - and you know it seemed like a good idea
- It was always Polish food from the beginning - Well it started off - he had
pizzas originally, a deep-dish pizza which is sort of a Detroit classic.
When the Polish food came in at lunch time it took off much faster than
the pizzas. - The first thing that we made was this a potato pancake usually topped
off with sour cream - Yes sour cream or apple sauce. - What do you prefer
- I put both on - Both! Okay we're gonna do it that way -Just to make sure you get
all the calories in there. - Yeah...There's a ton of pepper in there I love those crispy
edges soft in the middle the sour cream and the apple sauce gives it that
balance of sweet and sour - These are pierogi and they're filled
with potato and cheese. Well, you can fill them with anything really. Mushroom's
very popular, sauerkraut, blueberry, strawberry, apple- so they're good anyway - Again crispy
edges nice and soft in the middle cheesy everything just feels so homey
just right in that comfort zone - No fancy seasonings, all salt and pepper and basic
cooking. - Yeah this is simply boiled and then topped off with a little bit of
butter - And this is a very classic way to eat them. - You grew up eating this?
- Yes, I've probably eaten thousands of pierogi - And this is the one
- Hungarian pancake, yeah. - It's the same batter here and then top it off with
this pork goulash and a little bit of Hungarian gravy - This is a popular street
dish in Poland but a lot of times they'll fold it over so it's more like
potato pancake taco I guess - Okay! You could see that there's a carrots in
here bell peppers - Polish people love the root vegetables there's hardly a dish
that won't have a carrot in it or a potato or celery roots just a really
homey goulash over the top you won't be hungry
after that yeah give me a pillow for sure yeah definitely we're in Hamtramck
and this is a very polish community yes has it always been majority polish it
started off originally I think with Germans the Polish people were here in
the heyday in the 40s and 50s but it's always been kind of a port of call for
people to start their lives and then move to the suburbs Detroit was once
home to two million plus people when things went bad a lot of them left
but there seems to be a uprising now it's a little bit like an underdog City
and so I think that that spirit makes people come together especially
Hamtramck which is in the middle of Detroit is a lot of people's their
beginning so they'd like to come back and see the city where they their
families started into the restaurant they kind of remember where they came
from and remember the the values that this country really started with growing
up as kids and we see the college burgers and hotdogs and then we couldn't
eat the hamburger because it's not hollow our whole play on this was to
make classic American