Tasting Taiwan

We're always up for a festival, even if it isn't a Japanese festival.  This weekend was a big Taiwanese Festival in Ueno Park.  A perfect reason to head over to Japan's oldest "western style" park.

Located in central Tokyo, Ueno Park first opened to the public in 1873.  It currently houses several museums, temples, shrines, and a zoo.  In addition to all the sights, it is famous for it's cherry blossom viewing. 

Since the park was so large, we expected a huge gathering for the festival.  When we arrived, we found a fairly small area dedicated to the festival.  But the footprint that was provided was absolutely packed.  It consisted of a stage at one end, a few shopping booths at the other, and the sides were lined with food stalls. 

People were buzzing about, standing in line for food and watching the dancers on the stage.  Some of the smells were quite intense, including the very famous stinky tofu.  I couldn't stomach the smell of the tofu and had to go find my lunch on the other side of the festival.  It was just too foul for me.

Once safely on the other side, away from the stench, my family was able to pick a couple things to try: Lu Rou Fan (braised pork rice bowl), Panlasang Pinoy (mung bean sprouts with shrimp), rice cooked in a stick of bamboo, and the famous Xiao Long Bao (soup dumplings). 

After eating, we took a peek at the couple booths that were there and watched as a few people tried their best at the lychee seed spitting contest. 

My husband's goal with attending the festival was to buy milky mangos.  It is described as an amazing mango - juicy and flavorful.  When we tried the samples, he was so excited.  We purchased a couple to take home with us and enjoy throughout the week.  With that, we were done at the festival. 

I'm sad there wasn't more information about Taiwan or cultural information.  It was advertised as Taiwan Festival.  It would have been more fitting to call it a Taiwanese Food Festival.  I'm sure the crowd would have been the same.

Even though I was a bit disappointed by the festival, I was still glad we went.  It was my first visit to Ueno Park.  The park was really nice to walk through.  And we ended up doing several other things to make the trip worthwhile.  Stay tuned for what we did!