Osaka Twilight Festival

Traipsing to the Japanese Summer festival at the Treasury Gardens out of curiosity was quite a good thing to do on a nice Sunday afternoon. The sun was out, the wind was cool and the Japanese were all over the place, as well as very busy food stalls.

okonomiyaki - a vegetable pancake topped with mayonnaise and a special okonomiyaki sauce
from "okonomi" meaning "what you like" and -yaki meaning "grilled" or "cooked"



Harajuku Crepes
this one with peach and mango ice cream
the queue was extremely long for this particular treat! (waiting time was around 20 minutes)
if you want to skip the queue check them out at Shop 148 Knox Place, Melbourne Central



Takoyaki
a Japanese dumpling made of batter and chopped baby octopus, made yummier with some pickled garlic, topped with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise.
To make this dumpling you would need a cast iron with half spherical moulds, where the batter is poured.
The ball is then turned over to cook the top side for a couple more minutes before serving.



Takoyaki for $5




Another Japanese sweet treat - chocolate covered banana with candy sprinkles.
Thought it was a rip off at $3 (can get a bunch of bananas at Coles for this price!)
but as it was a novelty item and looked funny for the photos - the small change was fished out of the pocket and the camera geared up.

Not all treats proved to be yummy though, as there was a green latte that tasted of fishy seaweed.

it was green tea powder sprinkled on top of frothed milk.
not very successful.

There were some other events such as basic manga tutorial (japanese anime taught by non-japanese looking people), stalls selling kimono, girls playing the shamisen (a stringed instrument) and a professional busker rocking the house down. Quite funny, as at one point where there were several stalls that was not manned by any Jap folks at all [thus the event was hence called "I Want to be Japanese" festival ]. Just proves how multicultural this place is... in every sense :)