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| - Came here for a late dinner this past Saturday with my friends and my husband. We were originally going to Hon Pocha for dinner instead but their last call was 8:30 pm (closes at 9:00 pm) and by the time we got there, it was 8:45 pm or so. Ugh. It was super annoying because there were certain dishes that I was craving.
We ended up at YasikNara -- it's actually a similar establishment to Hon Pocha. Both places serve pocha style foods.
What is pocha? Pocha is short for "pojangmacha" which literally means covered wagon. We typically refer it as a tent nowadays and they are the terms used for street vendors. It refers more to the street vendors on the street that has a tent over them, which is really popular during the winters in Korea and typically really popular during the late nights. They serve appetizers, noodles, and soups. Different pochas will have different menus -- so pretty much like a restaurant. Whenever you eat at a pocha, there's is always liquor involved. If you've watched any Korean dramas, you have most likely seen one. It's usually the one tent place with chairs, tables, and the main actor/actress is getting drunk.There's actually not too many traditional pocha places in the big city anymore. They have mostly moved into brick and mortars now.
Unfortunately at YasikNara, they don't have liquor available yet. I assume that they are waiting for their liquor license. Huge bummer because Korean late night foods is not the same without some beer and soju.
YasikNara has an extensive selection on their menu. They range from your usual Korean dishes such as kimchi pancakes, ddukbokki (spicy rice cake), and fried chicken to your not-so-usual but traditional pocha dishes such as soondae (blood sausage), spicy chicken feet, and raw sea snails. They even incorporated some fusion items like kimchi pasta into their menu. So no matter the type of Korean food you like, you'll definitely find them here.
We decided to get an order of fried chicken $15, spicy chicken feet with fried rice $20, and stir fried chicken gizzard $15. The spicy chicken feet is located on their "hot n spicy" section of the menu and on this section, you are able to choose how spicy you want it, on a scale of 0-7. If you want an idea of how spicy is spicy, the waitress told us that 2 was a medium spicy. I'm an adventure go-er. If you've read my reviews, I am also a glutton for spicy pain. I can handle my heat and I will challenge the scale if you tell me your 2 is medium. But why is your scale so tilted? I asked what is the base to their spice levels -- was it gochujang (red pepper paste) or tons of peppers or what was it? She told me it was chili extracts. Well then.. from my personal experience on chili extracts, you don't want to fuck with it. My friend and I whimped out and decided to get a level 3 for it -- we weren't in the mood to have fiery butts. Keep in mind, the fried rice that you get with it uses the same sauce that the chicken feet comes in.
The fried chicken came to the table first. They use a whole chicken for the dish and it's a pretty small chicken. It's probably the same size chickens as the ones you find at Greenland. They cut it in quarters for you, comes with shredded cabbage with thousand island, and it also has dipping salt for it. It actually reminded me of deep fried quail. The chicken itself was pretty decent and it was fried really well. However, it doesn't remind me of Korean fried chicken very much ..
The spicy chicken feet was not boneless. There is a boneless version but it was $25 versus the $17, plus $3 for the rice. A level 3 spice is spicy. It hits you, lingers, and builds as you keep eating. I would probably compare it to a level 10 at a Thai restaurant. It was super delicious though and I wouldn't mind getting it again. However, I would prefer the boneless version but I don't think it's worth $25 for it.
Lastly, the stir fried chicken gizzards. It came with two different types of dipping sauces: sesame oil with salt and pepper and something similar to Tabasco. The dish was okay .. I think I would have preferred it to have a bit more flavor. But then again, it could be because the chicken feet had a ton of flavor to it so everything else seemed a bit bland.
I think YasikNara is a pretty decent place to grab some Korean dishes that you can't get anywhere else in this city. I honestly really enjoyed it. However, the only thing that is keeping me from coming back would be their price point. Their price point is entirely too high for what they are serving. I understand that they are a restaurant from LA but even for LA, those prices are a bit high. I am not sure if they're charging high prices because of how unique their dishes are but it's just not my cup of tea. I mean, they have french fries on the menu for $10, steamed egg for $10, and their sea snail dishes are $30.
Three stars for their chicken feet and spice levels. I'll definitely come back if they can lower their prices.
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