That REM song doesn't actually have anything to do with anything, but it's a real song about Rockville, Maryland (maybe it's because I hail from the other side and am uninformed (I can think of two songs about Arlington), but there can't be too many songs about Maryland and maybe no other songs about Rockville?). Rockville happens to be the home of The Kielbasa Factory, the closest thing I could find to a Polish restaurant in the DC area. There are a couple places around that claim to be Polish, but were more generally Eastern European with leanings in other directions, such as Hungary or oddly, Scandinavia. So on a snowy Sunday we set out in pre-Christmas traffic for The Kielbasa Factory, which as you might expect, is a haven for Polish expats. They sell all kinds of Polish treats, from a wide variety of kielbasa (not surprisingly), dried mushrooms, jams, dairy products, even Polish toiletries and magazines. We escaped with a pound of the classic kielbasa, some Polish bacon, a pack of buckwheat groats, two cartons of potato and cheese pierogis, and four Paczki or doughnuts (when I asked the surly check-out woman what kind of doughnuts they were, meaning what type of filling, she said "they are Polish." In addition to being Polish they were also filled with plum jam.) The kielbasa and bacon made for a very tasty stuffed cabbage and the pierogis were deliciously doughy, but the Paczkis were a real disappointment. They look really, really good in the picture on the Kielbasa Factory website, but they were not fresh and the jam was not good quality. I'm not really a doughnut person, but I do have fond memories of rose jam-filled doughnuts in Warsaw. Alas..... I don't know that I'd drive all the way to Rockville just for The Kielbasa Factory, but if I found myself nearby, I might very well pop in for a package of pierogis or other Polish delight.
The Kielbasa Factory
1073 Rockville Pike, Rockville
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