annual japanese food festival/gluttony

last last week (?) destructor and i and two of my friends who i shall name minnie mouse and belvedere trekked downtown to little tokyo early saturday morning to attend the annual japanese food festival at the new otani hotel.

destructor and i have been going every year for the past 3 years, and are slowly recruiting other gluttonous friends who enjoy endless sushi. every year the ticket gets more expensive - this year it was $50!! (compared to $40 last year)

but we soon found out why.

instead of giving out a limited number of food tickets per person, it was ALL YOU CAN EAT. what? all you can eat sushi?? you might immediately think of disgusting places such as todai, but no, this is not the case! here they have the freshest, best sushi ever, every year. on top of that, they have beer, and sake tasting, and tons of other foods such as my beloved okonomiyaki, yakisoba, tempura, etc etc!

here's our first meal (11am). okonomiyaki, yakisoba, tempura, chicken teriyaki.

i had a nice cold beer with this (the beer/sake was also unlimited. dangerous.)

every year they also do a tuna cutting demonstration. then they give out the pieces to those standing in the audience, including the nice cuts of toro. i got a big piece this year! i ate it before i got a chance to take a picture.

suuuuushi! that piece in the middle is toro. see this plate? they kept popping these out and putting them on the table faster than people could take them!

by noon we were stuffed. we had to take a break.

nike dunks, from champs, modeled by destructor.

vintage boots, from slow, modeled by shoe fiend.


we went back inside to eat more, and also to try and take some sushi "to go". they have a demo for this every year. this guy wraps up the sushi using this amazing contraption, and each piece is timestamped - TIME stamped (for example: "expires 10:08pm").

we ended our food, beer and sake binge with some very creative uni snacks:

uni sushi

soba chip with guacamole and uni

wasabi potatoes with uni

!!!

quiet graffiti

little tokyo, los angeles

tofu journey

tofu festival 2007! we braved the blistering heat in little tokyo to come eat tofu.

here's my sister and i loving the giant tofu block outside the festival.

it was not easy getting there. first we parked at one of the free lots further away from the festival (hey, it was free). the garage was empty and the escalators weren't working.

then we emerged in some weird shopping center i never even knew existed. b dalton? i haven't seen one of these in years.

after walking through the empty courtyard, we ended up outside, completely disoriented.

temple street! that was a good sign.

los angeles mall?? what is this? i never knew this was downtown.

at last - food! by the time we finally made it inside we were parched and dying. it was unbearably hot that day. this is the tofu okonomiyaki. i am obsessed with okonomiyaki right now.

ahi poke salad with tofu. this was my favorite - i had it 2x.

these tofu sticks don't look too exciting but they were actually really good - i think it was all in the sauce.

bruschetta. boring! apparently the bread was made with tofu, so it was vegan.

after the festival we ended up in korea town at some weird deserted food court. we didn't eat there, we were just passing through.

mom's hand?? what does that mean?