Natsu Matsuri 2015 Food Recap

Last weekend was Uwajimaya's Natsu Matsuri, summer festival if you will, and I got to try a lot of the yummy Japanese foods the vendors provided there! It is a great way to sample a lot of items for a fairly cheap price! They want to promote their items and get it out there so the lower pricing helped with that incentive. This will be a quick/food heavy post - be warmed!

Curry tofu stew with white rice with fukujinzuke-a type of red japanese pickled combination of daikon, eggplant, cucumber that is usually paired with curry. For $1 this was definitely worth it and it was tasty too. I've never had curry with tofu and it was a nice change.

Classic karaage-or fried battered fried chicken with sweet chili sauce and spicy mayo. What's not to like about this dish? The sauces worked well with the deep fried chicken and it's especially good while its extra hot. $3 (I think)

Gyoza-or Japanese potstickers. They're a little crunch on the outside with a moist meat filling. Comes with a dipping sauce. Easy to eat and almost everybody likes these! It was $2 for 5 pieces.

Ramen burger for $6. I really wanted to like this and wished it was better, but I'm honestly glad I didn't buy this myself. The noodles had no flavor and would've been better if there was a little more in my opinion. The burger was overly dipped with the sweet teriyaki like sauce. It just wasn't my thing. A bite of this was enough and I was honestly disappointed.

Nothing like a fresh young coconut with the freshest juice. I know coconut water isn't for everybody but i'm glad I love it!

Poke bowls for $5. I'm glad I got to try a little sample of this since Tuna dishes are always a favorite. If you like the mix of raw ahi tuna, soy sauce, onions and ogo with rice, then poke is a must.

Yaki Onigiri-grilled rice ball with salmon flakes. So simple, yet so good! The salmon flakes definitely added a nice flavor element to the rice and the crispy outer parts of the rice added a nice crunch. Definitely a good snack for $2.

Okonomiyaki-a type of Japanese pancake if you will loaded with cabbage and egg topped with Kewpie (Japanese mayo) okonomiyaki sauce, and bonito flakes. If I liked cabbage, I'd probably enjoy this a lot more, but this had way to much cabbage for me. $5

Probably my favorite thing at the festival was this Tonkotsu Ramen-pork broth ramen noodles. For $5 you received a decent portion of noodles, a thick rich broth, a piece or two of pork and onions and other condiments. The broth was flavorful and the noodles were just right, not too soft and not too chewy. 

To cool off, shaved ice is a must! This is actually my friend's but he let me share, of course. He choose a root beer flavoring, loaded it with condensed milk and topped it with mochi (chewy rice balls). This tasted like a root beer float! The only problem with this is that the mochi wasn't soft enough so it had more of a gritty than chewy taste. Shaved ice by itself was $3. Toppings were 50cents each so $4 total.

Another favorite and the last thing I tried was the pork udon! Probably my second favorite dish after the ramen and of course it is noodles again. This one had udon noodles with fatty pork on top, onions, tempura flakes and spicy garlic condiment on top. So fatty but so good! I'll definitely be trying to make this at home myself! $4

There were also other things going on but these are just the few food items I personally tried myself. Don't worry, this wasn't just eaten in one day, it spanned over two! There were also fun games for the kids! I love events like this, especially in the summer time, and especially when there's so much food to go try. I have been going to this festival almost every year, mainly because I work the event, and it is just fun to see a bunch of people gather together and try some new (and old) things!

Readers, have you tried any of these dishes above? Do you like Japanese foods? What are your favorites? Let me know!

Birthday Celebrations w/ Food !

My birthday was the other day and I just wnated to share the family celebration I had that, of course, centered around food!

Last Sunday, we had a larger family dinner to celebrate my birthday and I decided to eat Korean BBQ!

If you haven't had K-BBQ before and you love meat, then you should definitely try it! We went to Palace BBQ in Bellevue (there's another one in Federal Way). To check out their menu and site click HERE)

I love the fact that you cook everything yourself and can watch it sizzle and smoke  >.< There's a large selection of meats and seafood and my personal favorites are the pork belly (pictured above--its like bacon), Kalbi (pictured above-marinated short ribs), shrimp and bulgolgi (marinated thinly sliced beef).

I also love the banchan (small side dishes) that they will keep refilling for you as well. My favorites are the cucumber kimchi and potato salad that they make. The dipping sauces for the unmarinated meat are so simple but good as well. There's sesame oil that I like to add dopanjang (fermented bean paste) and garlic. Then I like the citrus-y soy sauce with jalapeno to dip the pork belly in. It's all just so tasty!

If I have to be honest though, I think I do like the Federal Way restaurant slightly better than the Bellevue one, but they both make me happy =P

And of course, for some reason, I have to have beer (Korean beer of course) with my bbq. I'm not a beer drinker, but I realllly love OB--its not too heavy but isn't too watery. It has a nice lager flavor and I love the carbonation. It's good for washing down the grease haha. 

Just for kicks, but I did like it. It's a baby octopus (like calmari).



Then on my actual birthday day (yesterday the 21st ^^), my brother treated me out to Ramen at Kukai Ramen & Izakaya. I've been here before but don't think I've written a review on it. Anyways, in Chinese tradition, you are usually supposed to eat noodles on you birthday to represent a long life/longevity. I was feeling for some Japanese ramen so this is where we went!

We started off with some appetizers: their yaki onigiri (grilled rice balls) and their house salad. I wish their onigiri was less mushy and more hard/crunchy. The rice was too mushy for my taste and it was barely crispy on the outside--like it was too wet. The flavor of it was good though and there was some sake (salmon) bits in it I believe and I like it when it's wrapped in the nori (seaweed).

I didn't try the salad but it was just a simple one with tofu, chicken, nori, and a miso dressing.

Oh yea, and we also had agedashi tofu, which is basically a deep fried tofu in a dashi broth topped in bonito dried tuna fish) flakes and shredded daikon (a type of radish).

Now the best part--the actual ramen! I really like their Tsukemen (dipping noodles) with a tonkotsu (thick pork broth) dipping stock.  I like dipping ramen sometimes because I can control the amount of flavor and bits of what I eat since I don't always like mixing everything together. I choose the regular broth (they have a lighter portion) so I could enjoy the full flavor of the pork broth. It was very rich, thick and savory and slightly intense in flavor but it's exactly how I like it. The pork slices were also very flavorful and tender so it wasn't chewy at all.

One of my favorite parts to the dish is the half boiled tamago (egg) and how the outside was nice and cook but the inside yolk was nice and runny--having none of it cooked at all! They must have their timing down to be so consistent. Anyways, I definitely loved that and always love my yolks in eggs extra runny.

Of course to top off the night (even though the weather was basically freezing!) I picked up a mini treat of Menchie's frozen yogurt which was basically only one store over!

I picked the mango sorbet (hella bomb), blueberry pomegranate (I wanted to keep in the same tart theme) and of the plain original flavor. I topped it off with some mochi (chewy rice cakes), popping boba in mango, cheesecake chunks, cookie dough, pomegrante seeds, kiwi and strawberries and I was very content for the night.

Hope you guys enjoyed the food post! I love sharing good meals with photos =P