The Girl Who Ate Tokyo: festival

Grill a chicken thigh with salt and pepper till its skin turns a crispy amber, and I WILL SHOW UP.

If you are worried that Japan has forgotten how to have a good time, it hasn't. Shortly after our return, we went to a Children's Day festival in Takanawa. Lots of stalls with food and toys. This meant all kinds of begging from the kids. And me. The Professor gave in, needless to say. First came the ridiculously juicy and crusty chicken.

There is no way to do this at home--it has to be a big, sketchy grill.

Then the toys. Son of Z. talked his way into a ray-gun that lights up and makes a very loud noise that is the precise sound of parental buyer's remorse. Mini Z. went for the traditional mask.

It's a mask of Hello Kitty wearing a mask of Ultra Man. Very meta.

Then more chicken. This time from the lovely little Portuguese place down the street. Several restaurants from the neighborhood set up stalls with all kinds of goodies. The Portuguese chicken was more garlicky and charred--very nice. The same restaurant had a guy carving prosciutto from one of those stands. In my dream home, there is a similar set-up on the coffee table, right next to the remote.

Delicious chicken--but what to do with the one skewer?

Street prosciutto! I can't believe we beat New York to this.

Baby octopi on a stick!

Big 'ol tub of margarine--not butter--at the hot potato stand.

Then I saw the cake van. CAKE VAN. Why can't I be abducted in one of these?

Tragically, they were out of cake. Really. I was forced to look longingly at photos of their usual selections. So now I have to get all stalker and track them down at their next venue, when the whole point of the cake van is that the cake comes to you. Damn you, cake van.

Pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate torte, baked cheesecake, and what, some kind of custardy thing? Curses!

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Summertime means matsuri (festivals) in Japan. The biggest one in Tokyo is the Azabu-Juban Matsuri, which is in a very upscale and international neighborhood. My mom was in town, so she and I took Mini Z and Son of Z out for a walk with the mob. Japanese festival food is its own thing--Japanese, but nothing like the refined flavors and presentations you would find on a Japanese menu in the US. Things are sweeter, saltier, greasier, and smokier. The SAT analogy might go, "matsuri food is to Nobu as a Brooklyn street fair sausage and pepper grinder is to Babbo."

Okonomiyaki--saucy little savory pancakes from Western Japan

Hot potatoes! They steam in that stack of boxes. Help yourself to toppings.

Swirly sausage lollipops! All my dreams are coming true!

The ladies and some gents roll out in their best yukata (cotton summer kimono), which is admirable given the heat and potential for irreversible food staining.

Commemorative fan--why did I not get one?

Fly yukata and shaved ice on the corner.

I am a huge sucker for a street fair and all the attending goodies, especially takoyaki, which is a sort of grilled ball of batter with octopus inside. Slather it with Kewpie mayo and dark, glossy, worcestershire-y sauce, sprinkle on some bonita flakes, and it's the most wonderfully satisfying thing you ever struggled to eat with two over-sized toothpicks. Beware: they retain heat in a crazy way and you end up kind of nodding with joy while you suck in air trying to eat this little ball of magma.

Takoyaki!

At long last--baby octopus takoyaki.

Watching them being made is nuts--the cast iron pan has these golf-ball sized indentations that they fill with batter. Then the octopus goes in, and once the ball starts to firm up, they rotate it with a toothpick so it forms a sphere. Years ago I had some with entire baby octopi in them, and I finally found them again. Victory!

Turning these out in perfect little spheres takes practice, speed, and confidence. The pros make it look like plucking a harp.

The kids went old school: chocolate dipped bananas, candied apples, tiny doughnuts, and the inevitable blood sugar crash and burn on the couch at home. Those little sugar gliders came down hard. And they weren't alone--there was a kaki-gori (shaved ice) stand doing a brisk business letting the kiddies apply their own syrup. Wise? Perhaps not, but very popular.

Choco-banana is a compound word Mini Z is mastering.

Two grapes candy-welded to a tiny apple. Just the color makes my teeth hurt.

Hot soy doughnuts

Old-fashioned ice shaver

Self-serve syrup--dig her psychedelic snow cone.

My only regret is that I didn't have the guts/gut to try all of it. My mother is cursed with the Salieri-like desire to eat, but a tiny coin purse of a stomach. She managed a nice little okonomiyaki, but little else. We left with her looking wistfully over her shoulder at some potsticker-like stuffed pancakes hissing on a grill. There were lots of things on sticks calling to us (is it me, or do things just seem tastier on a stick?), as well as the festival standards, like yakisoba (fried noodles) and some heavenly-smelling seafood. Really, we didn't even make it down the whole street. It's the stands that we didn't see that will haunt my dreams.