Dish Spotting – Kenka

St. Mark’s Place is famous for its cheap, mostly Asian eats.  This small stretch of the East Village has become a destination for its Japanese izakayas, Korean bbq joints, and ramen – some admittedly better than others.  (And, of course, some are just plain awful.)  But there are a few gems that are worth visiting, and even worth waiting in line for.  Kenka is one of those places.  Just across from two 2 Bro’s Pizzas and sunken below street level, this spot always seems to have a line from forming outside around seven.  But unless you speak or read Japanese, you might miss Kenka altogether, because the sign out front is written in Japanese.  The best way to find it is to look for the cotton candy machine just outside the entrance.   Inside, there’s affordable and terrific tapas-style dining.

With its low ceilings and dim lighting, Kenka seems moody, but it’s surprisingly festive, often packed with an after-work crowd, casual dates, and packs of college students.  The music in the dining room is loud – sometimes too loud– ranging from heavy metal to J-pop all sung in Japanese and the walls are covered with Japanese movie posters and photos. There’s an open kitchen, where you’ll often spy cooks bopping their heads to the music. As for the menu, it’s nearly as big as the table itself with over 100 dishes and photos of every single one of them.  The kitchen turns out everything from deep-fried frog or oysters to grilled salmon bellies, rice porridge, soba, ramen and pork cutlets.  There’s tofu, which comes 12 different ways, as does every other featured protein, like chicken, pork, and beef.  Start with the Japanese pancake, studded with juicy nibbles of pork, squid and vegetables.  The potato pancake itself was thick, creamy and crunchy — a little like mashed potatoes molded into a pancake, laced with bacon and pickled ginger. 

Instead of ordering yakitori by the piece, Kenka offers a “yakitori set of sorts” with chicken four ways, including the chicken breast and chicken skin, all of it excellent.  Nabe dishes, which simply means served in a bubbling pot, come with their own electric heating coil, which look almost like it was ripped straight out of the stove.  There’s pork belly, beef intestines, chicken and seafood and lots more.  The only one we didn’t care for is the pork with kimchee, which tastes like Chinese-takeout.  There’s even a Kenka Curry Challenge, $25 for 4 pounds of curry and rice to be eaten within 20 minutes.  They also offer great drink specials: $1.50 for a draft beer and $8 for a large pitcher. 

Really, our favorite thing about eating at Kenka came with the check.  Instead of traditional mints, guests are given a small, plastic container of sugar, one per person at the table.  After you’ve paid your check, you take your sugar to the cotton candy machine out front (the perfect place to observe the queue forming) and make your own cotton candy — on a chopstick nonetheless.  It takes a bit of practice – at least one of ours came out lopsided and it’s a pretty small serving.  But it’s the perfect size to get you to your real dessert: a gelato sundae at Tim’s Gelateria Classica down the block.

**Note: The chairs are curiously short, so don’t bring a long jacket or it will drag on the floor. A wicker basket for handbags was promptly provided, no request needed.

Kenka
Address: 25 St. Marks Place, btwn. Third & Astor  Place
Phone: (212)254-6363