Boka on St. Mark's Place

O, Korean food. You sweet, spicy, and delicious bastard you. 

Two weeks ago, three of my best friends came to visit me in NYC as we squeezed in a tiny room that could barely fit my bed, dresser, and my desk. We basically slept on top of each other (we're REALLY good friends). OKAY. That's not the point of the story. The point is is that we went to a restaurant called Boka one night while trying to find places to drink in St. Marks.

For those who don't know what St. Mark's is: it's basically a cultural street in East Village, where you can basically go in any restaurant and have a delicious meal or awesome drinks. If you don't think your food is adventurous enough, you can also get a piercing or get inked in the many tattoo/piercing parlors in the neighboring buildings to get your pants wet from too much adventure.

Okay, back to the story. So walking around St. Mark's, we saw many appealing restaurants from the outside, but the lines were much too long. Remember, it was a Saturday night and everyone was already drunk at this point and people are trying to satisfy their drunk munchies. Then we stumbled upon Boka. I have to be honest, from the outside, it looked a bit sketchy. But once inside, it was actually large and comfortable (except for waiting room, which could only fit two parties at a time without being in the way of the people coming in and out of the restaurant. Seriously the waiting room was smaller than a Starbucks bathroom). The atmosphere offers a fusion of the modern Asian and your local hipster.

Crab and Avocado - $5.60                                  Salmon, Tuna - $5.85

We opened with Boka Rice Balls. I ordered the Salmon, Avocado Rice Ball and Josh ordered the  Crab and Avocado Rice Ball. This dish was pretty good. The rice was sweet and there was enough inside the ball to balance the rice to meat ratio. The rice balls reminded me of the lunches I'd buy from my Korean friends back in high school. O, don't you just love when you order appetizers with a side of childhood memories? No? Okay. Nevermind. Let's move on.

Combo Large (10 wings & 5 drumsticks) - $19.95

Look, let's be real together for once. I'm a simple man. I like TV, video games, and chicken wings. Okay, maybe Boka couldn't offer TV or video games, but it did a damn good job with the chicken wings. With two signature flavors of "soy garlic" and "spicy" (Yeah, it's just called spicy), the chicken wings were by far the best thing I've had here. Boka is also known for their wings/drumstick dish. I wish I had enough chicken wings in NYC to state that this is the best chicken wings around, but unfortunately I haven't. However, I would confidently say that this is the best chicken wings I've had in NYC so far. There's your statement right there.

The wings were crispy, as if it was triple battered. The flavors were both amazing and true to their name (holy moly the spicy one). I do prefer the spicy one though, since it was also sweet, adding an interesting twist to the chicken wing. I think the drumsticks were delicious as well, but I preferred eating wings because you lose a lot of the crispiness through having the bigger chicken with less skin.

Watermelon Soju - $29

But you know what they say, "you can't have wings without a drink". I don't know who exactly said that, I think it was Galileo or Martha Stuart or something, but I've heard it before. Maybe it was Rachel Ray or something, ANYWHO, we got drinks. 

OooooOooooohhhhh yessssss. Look at that beautiful thing known as the Watermelon Soju. Okay granted the alcohol to watermelon juice ratio favored alcohol, it wasn't too bad. One $30 watermelon holds up to 4 glasses, but if the drink isn't good, the watermelon holds up to 4 disappointing glasses. Yes, I said it, I didn't enjoy the watermelon soju. I'm no soju connoisseur, nor am I one for alcohol, but I didn't enjoy the taste of a bottle of soju mixed with New York's tasteless watermelons. I admit, I enjoyed the presentation and pouring the drink from the watermelon, but I don't think it deserves its title as a signature drink. I wouldn't have ordered this if it didn't come in a watermelon. I won't be ordering this the next time I come back.

On the bright side, at least we were able to get good instagram photos out of this disappointing $30 drink!