Japanese Street Festival

In addition to our visit to Ollie's Trolley last month, Superking and I also went to see the Cherry Blossom Parade accompanied by the Japanese Street Festival. The parade was pretty neat though it seemed a little slow. For some reason, we'd see an act go by then had to wait five minutes before the next act made it by. Not sure what was up with that but what we did see was neat.

Cherry Blossom mobile

Japanese ladies and gentlemen doing traditional Japanese dancing

DC Roller Derby girls

Southern belles in very frilly dresses

antique fire truck

a cherry blossom!

military band

Miss PIggy

high school marching band

cherry blossom princesses

After waiting around for the parade to pass by, we wandered a few streets over to the Japanese Street festival.  It was packed full of people! There were tons of food vendors, Japanese art and various wares, and even street performers.  I've never seen so many anime costumes in one place before!

Japanese Street Festival

Adorable girl selling anime costumes

We decided to grab a bite of Japanese cuisine so we fought our way through the crowd to stand in a line headed towards a food vendor.  Half the time we weren't even sure what we were standing in line for. There was no shade and it was unseasonably warm for early April (thank you global warming).  But as we neared the front of the line we noticed the sign where we were about to order says "Sushi Taro".  Hey, we know this place!! It was one of our favorite stops on our first DC weekend trip!  We know the food is gonna be good then.

Of course we have to order at least one weird thing from their menu. We ordered a couple of pork buns, some pork belly on a stick, and an octopus tentacle also on a stick.

here's the menu...

The pork buns were good.  Nice soft buns filled with juicy pork and some kind of cucumber/veggie slaw with a light tangy sauce.

The pork belly...awesome, of course. Whats not to like about fatty pork meat on a stick??

The octopus...was interesting. First of all you can see the tentacle trying to escape the box.

Then we squirted a little lemon on it...I've had octopus before, even a little tentacle.  But this was a bit much for me.  I don't like the feeling of those practically-raw suckers on my tongue!! And to me the taste was not even what I was expecting.  I actually spit a piece out, which is something I never do!  Superking, however, loved it and ate it all up like it was going outta style! 

Overall it was a fun experience. But next time I'll just stick to the pork belly or go with regular sushi.

the one cherry blossom left on the Tidal Basin