So the event happening in Huntington Beach this weekend is officially called the Huntington Beach Sister City Japanese Cultural Festival. It will be on Saturday, March 29, 2014 from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm at Huntington Beach Central Park, 7111 Talbert Avenue, Huntington Beach, CA 92648.
And it will have all sorts of events, such as taiko drums, traditional dance, games, crafts and a whole bunch of food vendors. But when one of those vendors is Keizo Shimamoto, the creator of the original Ramen Burger, you know it's going to be much crazier than your usual cultural festival. The first time Shimamoto came to the West Coast to do this, there were four hour lines. Yes. Four. Hour. Lines.
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Now you might say to yourself that you've been-there-done-that when Toro Burger in Santa Ana started serving its own version of the Ramen Burger. Well first of all, Toro Burger stopped calling their version a Ramen Burger (possibly due to the fact that Shimamoto holds a trademark for it). And second of all, you can't say you've tried a Ramen Burger if you've only had the knockoff.
Plus, if you have no patience to wait in line for one, Gaja Okonomiyaki and those crazy kids at Samurai Burrito will also be there.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.