Obon Festival Food

It's summer, and for me growing up, that means Obon Festivals! In brief, Obon festivals are Buddhist religious ceremonies that remind us to honor our ancestors in a happy joyous way.  It also gives a good reason to leave the house, do traditional dances around our pagan drum tower and eat festival food.  

Over the weekend, we took advantage of my little one taking a long afternoon nap and allowed ourselves the opportunity to stay out late as a family and take in the festival (and eat).   For me, the usual foods that I remember as a kid at Obon are Teriyaki Beef sticks, Andagi, and Yakisoba.   At this particular festival, they had a nice food stand that was selling Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki, two of my favorite fast foods when I visit Japan.  Because you don't see too many Okonomiyaki places in Hawaii they commanded the longest line and I had to wait nearly 30 minutes to purchase my two orders ($5/each).  Since I was there, I also bought a tray of Takoyaki ($4) eventhough I wasn't hungry enough to eat it.  I waited 30 minutes so I figured this justified my time in line. 

To my surprise, the Okonomiyaki was quite tasty for being served at a festival.  The food was hot all the way through and yielded a two fairly crispy pieces of bacon cooked on top.  My only concern otherwise, was the 10 year old boy who was putting the sweet soy glaze and mayo on the dishes sould have put a lot more on.  But I'm sure he was told to budget the sauces since they had a long night ahead of them. 

As far as festival food goes, this was pretty good.  I also ate some beef sticks ($1.50)  and Spam Musubi ($1.50), but neither are really worth mentioning about.  The Takoyaki was fairly average as well but, again, I stood in line for 30 minutes for the stuff so I was darn well going to eat it!.

 Boy and Girl Festival Cookies ($3 for both)

Thanks for reading!