Obon Festival - Mountain View

This past Saturday, Donoho, Justyn and I went over to the Obon Festival in Mountain View. Unfortunately, I realized that San Jose's Obon Festival was the week before and I was busy. Let me just say this after seeing Oishii Eat's post on their Obon Festival, I had very high expectations. Okinomiyaki, Tako Yaki (octopus balls), Udon, Sushi, Sashimi... you know, the works. Well, after driving around in circles trying to find parking, we finally made it.

As we approached the entrance I heard the lovely Taiko drums banging away in rhythm. That made me happy but my stomach was grumbling. I waited to eat lunch at the festival instead of snacking at home. So, what did we find?

No Okinomiyaki, no Udon, no Tako Yaki. WTF? Those were the three things I had been craving. Well, not the Udon since it was a nice warm summer day but come on. French fries and corndogs? Come on!!

So needless to say, I was disappointed. I dragged my feet on the ground not wanting to eat but Justyn took charge and said he was going to get some tempura, SPAM musubi & beer. Yes, at least they had some refreshment to end my depression.

Alright, I was feeling better after we ordered so we dug in. How was the tempura? Soggy and greasy. They didn't even have tempura dipping sauce! The SPAM musubi was nothing compared to my homemade version. It was bland and ugh.. I feel bad for dissing the festival since it was a buddhist temple that was throwing the thing but jeez..

Anyway, after our half assed lunch I decided to get more refreshments. Sake... in fact, I had two of them. Justyn spotted some shaved ice, so he got it with condensed milk and red bean paste. I tried a bit of it, which I didn't like.

Well, to give this festival a break, I did end up having a good time after drinks. Plus we left the festival early enough to get home so I could hang out with Donoho and Justyn while playing Grand Theft Auto III. So my Saturday wasn't entirely wasted on bad food!