Japan Fes: Waiting for GoodEats
Before I knew, what waiting there was to do… —Japan Fes 2022
It’s Sakura season in Japan, that beautiful time of year when the cherry blossoms bloom, harkening the coming spring. The milk-pink display rises from the southern to northern island tip in a wave, as the earth awakens from the chill of winter to the pastel promenade of marching flowers.
Meanwhile, in NYC…
It’s cold as hell and windy like a mother—
But all of that is beside the point because Japan Fes is in town! (Now that town happens to be Chelsea in Manhattan; nothing that a quick hop on the subway can’t fix.)
With its first event in 2016, Japan Fes (drop the t) was conceived by Dragon Yamamoto, founder of JForward, a company that focuses on event organization, restaurant management, E-commerce, and study abroad programs. The fes(tival) seeks to bring Japanese culture to a New York audience, bringing together food vendors, musicians, artists, performers, and shops from all over the city. It’s also not limited to a single annual event, with different Fes events running all the way through October. Each event is wildly popular, with this year’s inaugural outing bringing in over 20,000 visitors.
And as one of that scant twenty thousand, I found that most of my inaugural experience was spent in transit from one respective street corner to another, as I hungrily awaited even having the chance to order one of the incredible street dishes that had been taunting me all week.
Should I be upset about other people having good taste? Shouldn’t I be excited to know that there are masses of like-minded foodies all around who have decided to gather under a unified calling, that of the One True Yum?
Yes. I should be.
No. Not if they’re ahead of me in line!
While the unfortunate consequences of popularity affected my overall experience, that has no bearing on what few things I did manage to sneak into my gullet over the course of the day. But rather than put them all here, I’ve decided to use this opportunity to dedicate the rest of this week to talking about Japan Fes food as well as Japanese food in general! Until then, it’s going to be a little bit of a wait, sorry to say.
Stay tuned for more. I promise it’ll be worth it.
The line starts this way.
road paved in morsels
scents strewn about the sidewalk
still, ever waiting
