Pork Kakuni

by Celia Sin-Tien Cheng
March 10, 2007

ZENKICHI
77 N 6th St
@ Wythe Ave
New York, NY 11211
718-388-8985

True, it’s the year of the pig and I also just dedicated a feature to the lovable creature but I swear that I am not purposely choosing porky dishes. It’s just that, for some reason, what catches my fancy lately has been skewed towards all things porcine.

Zenkichi is one of the latest izakayas (Japanese pubs) to open to a lot of fanfare. It’s in Williamsburg, and is a welcome authentic ethnic addition to the hipster neighborhood. For those who are hesitant to travel outside of Manhattan, you’ll be glad to know that Zenkichi is literally three blocks away from the Bedford subway stop — for me, coming from Union Square, it was faster than getting to Kefi — which I tried the same week — on the Upper West Side!

The atmosphere is very true to hip, Japanese izakayas. I can easily imagine myself in Aoyama or Omotesando. The interior is very dark and jazz plays in the background. It’s the ideal setting for a relaxing meal.

The enormous restaurant occupies the entire three stories of a building but is deliberately segregated into little cubicles to give each party the illusion of privacy. Blinds divide the “rooms.” You can only faintly see the people next to you, but you do hear them. Also, you are hidden from the wait-staff and must use buttons on the table and walls to call for service — a gimmick I’m not particularly fond of. The buzzers look loud and obnoxious in contrast to the demure feel of the restaurant. It’s probably to the Zenkichi staff’s dismay that customers can buzz to their hearts desire whenever they need something — and the staff is not exactly prompt in responding!

I like the atmosphere at Zenkichi. I would love it even more if there was a bar area just for drinks and hanging out. The first time I tried Zenkichi with my sister, we were sitting in lover’s lane. We were across from all the real lovers who reveled in their little two-seater cubicles, blinds separating them from the rest of the world. Naturally, we felt a little out of place.

Enough about the atmosphere, let’s move on to food. Zenkichi’s food is pretty yummy, but not amazing. It’s better than mediocre and some dishes are better than others, but after two tries, I still have trouble pinpointing what’s not working.

I think the issue is the selection. It’s hard to pair complementary dishes at Zenkichi, and some ingredients repeat themselves too often. Of course, at izakayas or any small-dish restaurant, the point is to sample many things. But two of the salads we ordered were very similar, and three dishes were deep-fried. It became hard to distinguish which was the cream cheese and anago tempura, and which was the shrimp and camembert tempura. Cream cheese and tofu seemed to appear in almost every dish we ordered. While the two are very different, the textures were similar. And after a while, I got tired of both.

Apparently, the most popular dish for gaijin (foreigners) is the cream cheese and anago tempura — which I enjoyed very much — and the most popular dish for Japanese is the kakuni — pork belly. It never occurred to me that people might be afraid of the fat on the pork belly, but a friend said she got to eat all of the kakuni because her dinner-mates wouldn’t touch it. Lucky her!

Slow-cooked fatty meats like kakuni, which is actually a Chinese dish well loved by the Japanese, are actually not that fattening because the slow process of cooking melts off the grease. The remaining fat just tastes good as it glides across your tongue and down the hatch. Don’t forget to put a little Chinese mustard on the meat for a subtle but pungent extra kick.

I’m pretty confident that Zenkichi will get their game together soon. They need to tweak or expand the menu but overall the place is charming and the food is good. I think they would do better business if they were located in Manhattan, but the atmosphere of the restaurant matches the atmosphere of the neighborhood — quirky and urban chic — so I guess it works.

Also in Japanese, Pork, Williamsburg