Polka Polish Restaurant

The complexity involved in the creation of traditional Polish cuisine presents an overwhelming obstacle for many new restaurants. Not so for Polka Polish Cuisine, where husband-and-wife team Andrew and Katherine Dabrowski turned the savings from Andrew's big rig career and staggering credit-card loans into a success story. Now in the capable hands of Katherine's relative Mike Budny, the medium-sized strip mall eatery has blossomed into an area gem featured in a segment on Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Budny's chefs grill up regular and spicy kielbasa, marinate beef stew gulasz (goulash) for 24 hours, and hide sauerkraut, potatoes, or cheese inside pierogies' doughy pockets. Amid Polka's kitschy, playful décor of trophy buck heads, whimsical signs, and multicolored ceiling tiles, patrons slake thirsts with 10 varieties of herbal tea and end meals on a dulcet chord with nalesniki, crêpes stuffed with sour cherries and cheese, drenched in vodka, and set ablaze as a tribute torch to a memorable meal and to the infamous flaming peaks of Poland's Carpathian Mountains.