Saturday, August 12, 2006

Nisei Week/Tofu Festival

On Saturday, D and I trekked out to Little Tokyo to check out Nisei Week and the Tofu Festival. I thought I could park at my work, but my garage wasn't open, so we had to find public parking, which is never a fun thing in L.A. Our first stop was Marukai, where D picked up some CA rolls and I had a mini chicken karage bento. Then we wandered around a bit, stopping at the Kinokuniya bookstore and Weller Court.

I told D we had to try the frozen yogurt at the newly opened Fiore.
fiore yogurt shopfiore yogurt
We ordered a small green tea frozen yogurt with raspberries. Normally, I would feel bad paying over $4 for frozen yogurt, but I've heard so many people rave about Pinkberry, that I had see what all of the fuss was about. Who knew that Koreans had a thing for frozen yogurt?? It was definitely tangy...more like actual yogurt rather than soft serve, which most frozen yogurts seem to taste like these days. D wasn't too impressed--probably tasted too healthy for him.

There really weren't too many Nisei Week activities going on that day. I think most of the festivities are next week. We briefly looked at exhibits of Japanese dolls, calligraphy, swords and ceramics. I liked the ikebana arrangements. Here is an example:
ikebana

This was our third tofu festival, and I think that it is getting better. Look for the free admission coupons that come in the grocery coupons on the Sunday before the festival--$8 value! There seemed to be more free samples, and more tastings in the $2-3 range, rather than the $4-$5 range. We had a Thai chicken skewer, green tea boba, mini tofu turkey meatball sandwich and D's favorite, chile garlic tofu (from the Lee Kum Kee booth). I think I will try to make it at home:
chile garlic tofu

We also watched a cooking demonstration by Ann Gentry of Real Food Daily. She made grilled tofu sandwiches and caesar salad with tofu dressing. She was touting the wonders of "vegannaise".
Real Food Daily Chef

There was also a performance by the UCLA taiko team.
UCLA taiko

Finally, D bought me an early birthday present :) This tote by Spicy Brown!
Spicy Brown tote
So cute!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The tote is cute but who is Spicy Brown? Am I that far out of it?

Lauren said...

I first heard about Spicy Brown two years ago at the Tofu Festival. As you can tell by my bag, it is "Asian-cutesy". Go to the website for more details.