¡ NY JapanTown's Soul Food Festival !

Skewered pork, meat covered rice balls, stir fried ramen - Japanese soul food.
Despite the cloudy and slightly humid New York City weather, NY Japantown's Soul Food Festival was a perfect way to say goodbye to summer food fairs and welcome the fall.

The two block long festival was the last of three festivals that NYJapanTown hosted this summer. This time around I made it a point to try out some of the foods - Tonton Pork and Rice meat balls were among them.  Despite the excruciatingly long line for the Tonton, it was absolutely amazing! So much so, that I searched among the restaurant listings in the Chopsticks magazine in hopes of finding an address where I could get more. If it's this amazing alone on a stick, I can only imagine what a bowl of rice and a few veggies might add to the experience.

For all those interested, here's the address to Hakata Tonton:

ADDRESS
61 Grove St NEW YORK, NY 10014
(bet. Bleecker St. & 7th Ave S) 

PHONE (212) 242-3699

Just to show you how my life finds ways of bringing things full circle, there's actually a Spanish song called "Bachata en Fukuoka" AND Fukuoka happens to be the region of Japan where the dish originates. Just a random tidbit I found amusing.

At the festival I also got a chance to meet up with Perezstart's @babylinda and @xbbx! Got a chance to chat with them and their friend @JerseyJesus for a few. So glad we got a chance to meet up. Sorry for the lack of photographic proof, but I'm sure we'll make a memory of your next encounter at NYCC. 

Oh and I feel the need to take a moment to mention how amazingly spontaneous NYC is. During the festival a guy came around giving away freshly made pizza - god it was delicious! I suppose you might be thinking, "Why would you take pizza from a stranger?" Did I mention it was FREE? Haha, no seriously, it was delicious ~ fresh-out-of-the-oven status.

 The stir fried ramen and squid/crab plates caught my eye but anything over $5 was a huge turn off for me. Festival should always = yummy cheap food, no? Oh and look at it what I managed to get for a dollar!

 Well, there was another one before the picture. It just happened to get eaten before I could snap it.

Before I wrap up the post I want to make mention of a few things

•  I want to apologize for not keeping you all up to date with the giveaway. Unfortunately my scheduled Bento Giveaway will have to be put on hold - as soon as it goes back into action, I'll let you all know! 
• As for last week's Tenoli Tuesday post - the personal life's been a bit hectic and a move is in the works; needless to say I've been running around like a headless chicken. I've already got a post planned for next week, so stay tuned! :)

Ja mata raishuu! じゃまた来週！

La Tenoli