When it comes to festivals in Japan, save your stomach space! Vendors come from all over and travel like carni’s, making a living from one festival to another, living out of their vans. But the food they make is often times, really good!!! There are the regular foods that are often seen like grilled corn, or grilled sea food or meats. Then there are vendors that come around, serving up foods that are rarely seen in certain neck of the woods.
Japanese Festival Food
The past couple of weeks was the annual Hojoya Festival. The first festival I went to while living in Fukuoka. It brought back a lot of memories, and happily I’m better equip to read signs, order and try different types of foods. Excitingly, my new festival food finds that I’ve never had before:
Deep-fried ice cream. Different flavors to choose from, but the ice cream inside often turns out to be more like soup. Eat with caution, because this can get messy.
A YU (あゆ) Fish. Everything is intact, salted, and roasted. This vendor had a little bar/eating area set up around his cooking pit. Nice and crispy, and everything is edible! No waste, though some people aren’t too fond about eating the head, but it is edible.
Potato Mochi (ポテトもち). Round and flat (potato-based) moochi on a stick. Deep fried, with a choice of topping. The #1 popular topping is cheese.
Choco-Banana. I have been making it my thing to get this every time I go to a festival, because they’re just so good! And I justify being “healthy” at one point, though it’s completely ousted by the chocolate coating and junk-food accessories.
But the important point here is that usually these vendors offer 2 for 1 if you beat them at “jun-ken” (rock, paper, scissors)!!
BC Roll in Japan 