Defeated at Kenka by a Root Vegetable : St. Mark's Misadventures I

What the eff.

Beetchie and I have been through a slew of dishes at one of our most frequented eateries. Some of the dishes have been excellent, some of them have been rather unpleasant tasting and some 'odd'.

Here's a quick recap for those who may not remember: Beetchie and I have downed frog, bull penis and my ultimate worst at the time - turkey testicles.

Notice I said, "at the time".

I have a new favourite to hate.

Before I continue, please bear in mind that Beetchie and I have never been so revolted by a dish that we could not finish it. In spite of her loathing of the bull penis' gelatinous texture, I ate it. In spite of my loathing of the turkey testicles popping in mouth, she had one extra to finish it off and in both instances we got our $6.00 worth of money in our stomachs.

The day has come, when Kenka has 1UP'd us. Twice.

If only it could be so simple as a little green mushroom that gives you extra life and not a poisonous cross bone purple mushroom that poisons you.

That is what we got last night, friends. A whole lot of cross bone purple mushrooms that poisoned us in the form of raw squid and julienne taro.

For. Shame.



"Notice how tiny the dish is?" said Beetchie, when our raw squid came to us.
"Yeah...", I replied.

The reason? It tastes of the smell of a fish that's been caught and gutted right on a pier. It was Briny, and when in the mouth initially, it just hit you. As Beetchie pointed out, chewing it just made it get tougher.



I kept eating it because I realized that I could cut the taste some by eating with some cabbage. Thank goodness for the Japanese and their obsession with cabbage as a garnish/vegetable side but alas, there's only so much anything can do to cut the taste of raw squid. Instead of feeling nauseous every time I put a piece in my mouth, I decided to stop after half of it was gone.

As a side note, I can taste the raw squid today if I think about it.

Next up were the croquettes. I don't know what the love is for some croquettes with the Japanese but it was a welcome dish. We got the creamy style.










We followed our delicious croquettes with a delicious side of beef intestines in a miso sauce. However, they were a bit too salty. They did however, work well with our salmon onigiri.












The salmon onigiri was a bit of a disaster because I don't think I will find one as good as the 3 for 150 yen we found on the streets of Ueno (the first neighbourhood we stayed at in Tokyo). It was disastrous because it was massive with not enough salmon and that was dry. Oh how I missed my fatty pork filling. ::tear::













Our fifth dish was the Hotate Butter. You can't really go wrong with scallops cooked in butter as we discovered years ago from this place but somehow it managed to be slightly off. For some reason they fancied up the scallops and decided they'd dabble in the arts of presentation. I miss the plain old plate. It just adds so much more backstreet shadiness/Yakuza to the mix when everything's kept simple.

Okay, so maybe I don't know what Yakuza behaviour is like (thank goodness) but I have experienced, and with great fondness, just sitting in a dinky hole in the wall place full of comfort, with a Hattori Hanzo of a chef and a few 'on their way to being drunk but harmless' Japanese buisnessmen. The food's great and simple because the experience is great yet simple.


And another thing before I carry on with the food misadventures - what the hell happened at Kenka?! The servers had all changed. The Chefs looked different to me as well and ::gasp!:: one of the servers was white! It's possible she was mixed but if that's the case then she really sucked up the white there. Beetchie missed the bitchy girl that hated on us every time we got there and I missed my guy who nodded and smiled at me like a smart-ass when I ordered the bull penis. Oh, and this one girl judged us when we couldn't finish the squid, "You don't like that?". You know what you, shut the fuck up! I'm sure she doesn't even like it. The ass.


Back to the food with the next dish being grilled fishies filled with roe. It tasted like grilled fish and that was that. There was nothing too spectacular about it other than the fact that the fish seemed to be talking to us.


















We were not satisfied and opted to get two more items. We decided on fried oysters (which was rather disappointing - it too, tasted of ocean but not strong like the squid) and taro. Taro was probably the worst suggestion I could make (and Beetchie was distraught that she whole-heartily agreed) and this was the other dish to slay us and made us admit defeat.







 If there's one Japanese word/dish I need to learn let it be this one, so I know to avoid it like the god damned Plague.


Of all the things, Yamaimo Senbongiri is by far the most embarrassing and vile thing we've ever eaten there. Who knew that a root vegetable could be evil! I've decided that I will only eat taro mashed, deep fried and stuffed with meat i.e. I will only eat it at dim sum.


The texture was slimy but to the point of it almost being as though it was cut up and then spat upon by a 3 people who had massive collections of spittle. Honestly, you'd think Beetchie would be okay with dish considering she drank the Water of Thousands of People's Spit last year in Tokyo. Heh, heh. Sorry B., I had to go there.

Here's some video to better demonstrate why:



Beetchie likened it to the taste of vomit. I likened it to nothing because I tried 2 pieces and have since repressed that memory.

Can you believe Beetchie actually kept eating it, first trying to give it a chance by suggesting maybe we didn't eat it right - proceeded to douse it in soy sauce and wasabi? That didn't help the situation either.

At least no one can say we're not fighters.

Ugh.

We left unhappily and with our little cups of sugar for the Cotton Candy Machine.
Even that turned out to be a failure.



Currently listening to: "Bullet in the Head" by Rage Against The Machine.