Umaimono Fair at Mitsuwa

Spicy tuna (my favorite!)

The Umaimono Fair at Mitsuwa was delicious this year. Happily the Omusubi Gonbei people were at this fair.

We bought a small bag of their rice too, which was a new product, I think, and a bit pricey. But their rice is so good! There's something about it that is better than other rice. My dad would say it's the radiation, since it's coming directly from Japan.

Salmon and roe (mother and child); Shrimp

They have tons of flavors of rice balls. They really should just set up a shop in Mitsuwa permanently or somewhere near my mouth.

Croquettes!

They had croquettes too. And the shrimp ball ones were okay, but they didn't have enough shrimp. It was mostly potato. Apparently the crab ball is full of crab meat, but we missed that one due to lack of stomach space. Croquettes don't taste good unless eaten immediately. The beef one was really greasy and fatty. We didn't finish eating that guy.

Shio Ramen from Nakamura-ya

From the Mitsuwa website: 

“Shio Ramen” of “Nakamura-ya” will make their first appearance for this event. Shigetoshi Nakamura hails from Kanagawa prefecture in Japan. At the age of 22, Nakamura opened Nakamura-ya and became famous for his shio ramen and signature “Ten Kuu Otoshi”, a water straining performance. Fast-forward to 2011 and after countless awards, newspaper and magazine articles, interviews and television programming, Nakamura has come to showcase his potential to the people of the U.S. Enjoy Nakamura-ya's delicate shio ramen with a tender and grilled cha-shu. The soup is paired perfectly with a very thin, chewy noodle presented by Sun Noodle California.

Really delicious green tea from the rice ball place.
Again, I have no idea what makes it taste so good. It just does.

Everything about the ramen was delicious, but I didn't love the broth. It was kind of fishy for me. The bits of garlic at the end of the dish were a delightful and tasty surprise. The egg was beautiful. The meat was generous (like a huge slab). The noodles were some of the best I've ever had. I just didn't love the broth. Jon loved the broth and funneled some of it in our tea bottle to take home for a snack at a later date. 

Caramel and some other flavors

For dessert we ate these. They were okay. One had a really good flavor that wasn't caramel. They were just really chewy. I have a fear of choking on food, so really chewy things don't really appeal to me.