Takko Town Beef and Garlic Festival

This weekend we went to the mini Japanese version of the Gilroy Garlic Festival. In fact, Takko (an hour and a half south of Misawa) is the leading producer of garlic in Japan, and is a "sister city" to Gilroy (aww, home...). This festival is not nearly as large or extensive in garlic use as its U.S. counterpart, but it was kinda cool nonetheless.

You can buy advanced tickets to participate in the BBQ where you grill your own beef and veggies, but Corey and I went last-minute and just bought a slice of the big beef slab they had roasting over a pit (and prepared with surgical-like attention... only in Japan is a BBQ slab of beef treated by immaculate workers with spotless white jackets and face masks).

The garlic sauce available to drench it in was absolutely delicious, but I couldn't stomach more than a bite of the fatty meat and had to give my slice to Corey (who had no problem gobbling it up).

We went, we tasted the beef, we bought some garlic, we made a couple loops amongst the BBQ-ers, and we left. Short and sweet. And maybe not really worth the 2+ hours each way it took to get there and back thanks to highway closures.