Scent of a Cumin Seed

A few weeks ago, we seriously considered catching the last quarter of the Redskins vs. Seahawks game at an Ethiopian coffee shop. I was tipped to this worlds collide possibility by a Washington Post article that interviewed several local immigrants, who, though hailing from far-flung corners of the globe, had nevertheless found themselves captivated by American football. We’re not really sports fans, but we figured we could handle a full quarter of football, particularly if we were able to enjoy it along with a cup or two of their presumably excellent coffee, some Ethiopian pastries, and the unusual atmosphere of enthusiastic Ethiopian Redskins fans:

Now his small shop, near the Pentagon, is a haven for Ethiopian fans of the burgundy and gold. On game days, they buy traditional pastries such as deep-fried pasté and spongy teff cakes, then crowd around a television set next to a sign reading "Redskins Zone."

The Post article didn’t actually name the Ethiopian bakery, but some Google sleuthing uncovered the likely candidate: Dama Bakery & Cafe. And intriguingly enough, I happened upon an interview with Dama’s pastry chef, Almaz Dama in Tadias Online, a business and lifestyle magazine for the Ethiopian-American community. It turns out that she not only studied French cuisine and pastry making at L'Academie de Cuisine, but also served as a White House pastry chef.

We ended up ditching those plans that day, but finally made it out to Dama Bakery & Cafe over the weekend. The bakery and cafe are attached to two other Dama enterprises, a market and a restaurant. Though the market and restaurant are somewhat shabby, the cafe has an attractive Starbucks style design. That night, the cafe was unbelievably busy, so we pretty much intended to bust in, snag a few pastries, and skulk away.

Aside from a tray of baklava, the dessert case mostly featured the sort of elaborately buttercreamed cakes that one would expect from a pastry chef with Dama’s pedigree. But since we came for the Ethiopian baked goods, I was not interested in Western style cakes.

When I inquired as to the whereabouts of the Ethiopian pastries, the proprietor, the very same man interviewed in the Post article, gestured with a sweep of his hand to two baskets unceremoniously tucked on a shelf behind him. I asked him for one of each item, so that we could enjoy as broad a survey of Ethiopian baked goods as possible. Unfortunately, I was so flustered by the hive of activity around us, that I didn’t have the presence of mind to sample their coffee.

Of the three pastries, only one was sweet. The first item was a samosa stuffed with lentils and cooked in a dry spice mix. The deep-fried shell of the somosa was chewy instead of flaky like its Indian counterparts. Overall, it was tasty, though fans of Indian somosas are unlikely to be impressed.

The second pastry appeared, at first, akin to an unremarkable French roll, but its considerable heft indicated otherwise. The crunchiness of the outer layer had a quick, deep-fried quality to it, while the inner core of the pastry was baked: dense, moist, and sweet. A perfect accompaniment to a leisurely cup of coffee.

The final item, however, was truly revelatory: deep fried dough, about the size of a hand, dark brown, and crispy on the outside. Inside, the stretchy, chewy dough was interspersed with toasted cumin seeds, the same little black seeds often featured in Afghan bread. The cumin seeds lent the fried dough an exotic savor. Though it was fairly greasy, I ate it with abandon. Later, AK remarked, “You smell like cumin seeds.” She considered this observation for a moment, and then continued, “That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Dama Bakery & Cafe is located at:
1503 Columbia Pike
Arlington, VA
(703) 920-3559

-AC