There was a real carnival atmosphere on the streets of Takayama, with many stall fronts offering a myriad of food for hungry festival-goers. It was an interesting mix of the traditional and the not-so-traditional (as this post will capture). I always find fascinating what people eat during celebrations.

These conch (sea snails) were bubbling away in their own brine, apeture side up, over hot coals. The molluscy gastropods were very popular - the big pile of empty shells testament to that fact.

These local river fish were salted, spiked, smoked over ruddy coals and absolutely delectable. In the days of yore, the fish were cooked over the irori, or traditional hearths found in Japanese homes (especially the thatched ones). We had them for dinner one night, and I practically picked the bones clean.

The okonomiyaki I am used to are normally round, thick, flat and covered with katsuobushi shavings and aonori. This version had been rolled around a stick (for ease of eating on the street I guess), and came with ketchup and mayonnaise or okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise.

What the? Toffee apples in Japan?! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering the proliferation of other Western imports into the country. We didn’t sample these (if memory serves me correctly, I was eating a choco-banana at the time), but looking back, I wonder what flavour the opaque white toffee could have been?

Choco-bananas are pretty self explanatory. Banana, spiked and dipped in chocolate and decorated with different flavoured/coloured chocolate splodges. I actually saw these for sale at the recent Box Hill Japan Festival.

Don’t these toffeed grapes look like jewels? OMG..they were absolutely wonderful. Plump, juicy tom-bowler sized black grapes, covered in crisp toffee that shattered when you bit into them.