Tonight's Dinner: Kenka

DMR and I were scheduled to meet at the Downing Street location of STA Travel to book our tickets to Asia. Their computers were down. Curses! So we walked over to the East Village location on 9th and 3rd Ave and afterwards, we Kenkafied it up!

Kenka is an izakaya on silly o' St. Mark's. I've been there many times before, but this was the first time for DMR. Basically you get to stuff your face and get drunk at a very inexpensive price. Tonight, DMR had an una-don - pieces of broiled eel over rice and I had a Taiwanese style ramen, which came with spicy minced pork and garlic or chive shoots. We also shared an order of pork shumai and an okonomiyaki. DMR had 2 glasses of Kirin on draft while I had one. He downed the first one like a man possessed. All this came out to $23.30 (with tax, but before tip)! Draft beers, (served in your standard issue pint glass) at Kenka are a fantastic deal at $1.50. Bottles are mysteriously 3x more expensive. We had one piece of okonomiyaki left and I was tempted to ring up the CLC to come on over because she loves to get Kenkafied too! DMR said it was his least favorite part of the meal, but when we're in Osaka, which is known for its okonomiyaki, I hope he'll be able to change his mind. The first time I had it was easily the tasiest - in Tokyo back in 1998 with my high school friend Hiromi. It was a cook your own type place and you got to order add-ons such as rice cakes, which we got and I highly recommend.

The food at Kenka is not extraordinary, just basic and good. And the prices, you can't argue. The atmosphere is rather unique as well - you might as well be in Japan. There's a wall of pachinko machines by the bathroom. There's a small patio you can see into, which I assume is for smokers. The speakers blare what sounds like propaganda music from decades past and the menus feature items like bull penis, fried frogs and Japanese porn drawings.

Along with our check you usually get a small dish of flavored sugar, which you can pour into the cotton candy machine for an airy treat on your way out. Unfortunately the machine broke sometime during our meal and there was no fairy floss for us. Oh and I think they got busted by the cops recently because they ID'ed me for the first time ever today.

Get Kenkafied, get Kenkafied!