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Mon | July 03, 2006

A Night at Kenka

Last night I dreamt that I went to a cafe and ordered green jello. The jello was liquid. I tried to explain to the Asian person behind the counter how to make it.

The green jello was reminiscent of that "dessert" that Quyen brought to modern Greek class, years ago, that tasted like nothing and felt like rubbery plastic.

The cafe in my dream was on the north side of the street, like the place where I had dinner last night.

I had dinner at a Japanese place on St. Marks, the one with the wide pit in front where people are always hanging out. It gets an underground feel from being a few slippery steps below street level (unfortunately, a lawsuit waiting to happen). Inside there are low ceilings, and low stools with four-inch backs that are the perfect size for someone who's about five feet two. The lighting is bright and the noise level is high. A megaphone in the corner of the ceiling blares out music from the time of gramophones.

At 9 pm last night it was packed, and Ari and I sat next to an outdoor smoking booth. We looked through the glass at several Japanese hipsters packed into a ten by eight foot area. Some of them squatted. Most Americans see squatting as primitive, but it has none of that connotation in Asia.

The squatting more than anything made it feel like someplace else entirely. It was also the noise, the mostly Asian clientele... the whole spirit of the place. It reminded me of when I was a kid going to yam tsa (aka dim sum) in Chinatown... which had different decor and clientele (families, not hipsters), but which was likewise loud. Dining out meant a loud, crowded place when I was a kid.

I had sashimi and curry soba noodles... I don't remember seeing any vegetables on the menu, except edamame. The noodles were yummy; the sashimi was good too. At the end they give you a tiny paper cup with about two ounces of pink sugar in it. You take it to the front of the restaurant, where there's a cotton candy machine, and you make a little puff of cotton candy on a chopstick.

The place is across from Dojo on St. Marks and it's called Kenka. It's an izakaya, which is a Japanese style bar/restaurant. Kenka is apparently one of a few izakayas that have sprung up on St. Marks in recent years.

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