WE LIKE IT CHEAP AND EASY

Dec
30
2009

Here’s a heavy thought for you: What if Roka Akor meant to simply offer up an affordable bar menu but what they stumbled into was an absolute snapshot of our societal and economic zeitgeist?

How high were you at dinner? you might ask.

We seem to be eating this way in a lot of places now, we say. It must mean something.

So it’s officially a trend—these bar menus of $2, $3, $4 items. Ordering from a menu with prices like that does more than free our minds about the check. They let us remember what it was like to order with reckless abandon, share in a way that’s less about trendy tapas and more about feeling the communal experience with the people at our table. And, you can now try things you wouldn’t otherwise order. These incredibly aggressive bar menus are all about “downscaling the upscale,” essentially making the best of the best available to the masses.

Roka’s new Izakaya Menu, offered in the lounge every day from 5pm to close, has all the elements to make you feel like a baller while ordering, yet a smart deal-seeker once paying. Some of our faves:

3-ounce burger: $2
5-piece salmon avocado roll: $5
Tenkatsu fried pork belly: $6
Grilled hamachi collar: $5
3-pieces of butterfish tataki with white asparagus and yuzu: $6
AND THE WINNER: Sweet corn tempura $5

Izakaya includes 14 food items at $2 to $9, and drinks—$6 wines & cocktails, $4 beers, $10 carafes of sake, and $5 to $6 shochus. So apparently, all of these small things are kind of a big deal … you know, in a culturally significant kind of way.

Roka Akor
7299 N. Scottsdale Rd.
Scottsdale, AZ
(480) 306-8800
www.rokaakor.com