Now open: Vostok Dumpling House in downtown Tacoma

The Russian dumpling cafe, Vostok Dumpling House, opened Saturday at 1126 Commerce St. in downtown Tacoma.

The casual cafe featuring a menu of Eastern European dumplings, soups and piroshki is an outpost of the Seattle restaurant in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The brother-sister team of Andrey Tokar and Anna Motso is behind the cafe, which will have the same hours as the Seattle dumpling house, serving lunch and dinner daily.

Motso is a graduate of South Seattle Community College’s culinary arts program.

Tokar described his dumpling house in a phone interview this summer as a modern-Northwest take on the dumpling take-out restaurants he remembers from his childhood in the Ukraine. “We’re not really aiming for a high-end dining experience. It’s more of a casual place with quick eats,” he said.

The cafe specializes in a mix-and-match menu with a choice of pelmeni or vareniki, stuffed with ingredients ranging from pork to chicken and potato-cheese, paired with a list of sauces that includes a dill, sour cream, thyme or butter sauce, among others. Dumplings start at $5.25 for a half order and top out at around $10 for a full order.

Add-ins of sour cream, bacon and caramelized onions range from 50 cents to around $2.

Diners can skip the customization and order from a list of “styles,” which are preselected flavor combinations added to any flavor of dumpling. The Ivan, for instance, comes with a garlic sauce, bacon and caramelized onions.

Rounding out the menu are borscht, as well as red cabbage and carrot salads ($3.50-$5). Piroshki include savory (sauerkraut) and sweet (cherry and apple) and are priced $3.50-$5.

The restaurant has opened next door to the newly opened Dunagan Brewing Co. Mad Hat Tea is two doors down.

This story was originally published November 30, 2015 at 7:41 AM with the headline "Now open: Vostok Dumpling House in downtown Tacoma."