This year’s annual JapanTown’s Cool Japan Festival will start on July 17^th, 2010 in the East Village. JapanTown will bring Japanese culture, heritage, food, festival vendors, entertainment and even robots to the streets of New York.

JapanTown Cool Japan Festival will offer many different types of Japanese street foods to visitors. You can enjoy street foods such as okonomiyaki, various types of Japanese curries, fried soba and Japanese sweets including pastries, shaved ices, Japanese ice cream and yakimochi. Local food vendors including Curry-Ya, Go! Go! Curry!, Otafuku, Go Restaurant, Umi No le, Souen and many others will be distributing samples at the festival. Here is a list of some of the Japanese foods you can expect to see at JapanTown’s Cool Japan Festival this year:

Beef bowl dumplings from Ajinomoto Frozen Foods USA

Grilled tonton pork from Hakata Tonton

Fancy sugar cube candies from Web Japan, Inc.

Cold udon from Umi No Ie

Organic Japanese produce from Suzuki Farm

Fried soba from Go Restaurant

Chinese noodles and fresh spring rolls from Souen

Okonomiyaki and yakisoba from Otafuku

Octopus curry served by Curry-Ya

Katsu Curry Dog, Chicken Katsu Curry Dog and Sausage Curry Dog from Go! Go! Curry!

Pastries and shaved ice offered by Cafe Zaiya

"Japanese Pizza" by O Planning

Ice cream served by Karaoke Shout
(http://nyjapantown.blogspot.com/2010/07/food-at-cool-japan-festival.html)

Aside from all this food, you can expect to see a lot of Japanese entertainment. There will be robot engineering workshops where visitors can build their own robot creations, a Cool Japan Fashion contest with a free round trip ticket to Japan for the winner, a scavenger hunt with a $50 gift certificate to Kinokuniya bookstore for the winner, and a performance by Reni Mimura, a popular cosply singer.

Don't miss out on this summer's JapanTown's Cool Japan Festival!