Powell Street Festival

Posted by Degan on August 5th, 2012

The Powell Street festival happens every year in Oppenheimer park this weekend. It’s a celebration Japanese Canadian culture and it’s awesome. There are sumo wrestling demonstrations, Taiko drumming, all kinds of people dressed up in kimonos and bamboo hats, and there is food. Of course there is food. Depending on your approach one of the first things you smell might be the salmon barbecuing over open flame – guaranteed to make your mouth start watering before you’re even close. There’s also okonomiyaki, takoyaki, mochi in myriad forms, karaage, gyoza, cold noodles, imagawayaki, tofu, SPAM sushi which I tried a couple of years ago and many other wonderful things.

Much of the food prep is done by local organizations – the Sumo wrestlers, for example, or the ESL schools – but Hapa Izakaya and the Mogu food cart were there this year with grilled ika and Japanese-style sandwiches.

The line ups can be long, especially for salmon and at Osaka Ball takoyaki, but I think I figured out the trick this year; stand in a shorter line and get a snack (and a drink – it was so hot yesterday that I got an iced tea at every vendor!) and then get in a larger line. It meant that I started with red bean imagawaki cakes and ended with grilled mochi wrapped in seaweed, but that was just fine.

Here are some photos: