Natsu Matsuri

Natsu Matsuri is a summer festival that is put on by the Uwajimaya Seattle store. As a festival venue, this location is not great because the space in front of the store is rather narrow. An event like this would be better suited at the Bellevue or Renton store, but I understand why the event is here. There is much more foot traffic.
The event offers up Japanese comfort foods from many companies that sell products at the store. Items include Spam musubi, ramen, okonomiyaki, curry and gyudon (beef bowl). Extremely affordable at $ 1 – 3 depending on the item. Obviously, $ 1 portions are not large but offer you a few bites of the dish that makes it worth it. I had some vegetable curry, a hamburger bowl and okonomiyaki. All of which were tasty and just $ 7 total.
In addition, I saw that there was a local vendor selling shave ice and they were holding food eating contests on stage for prizes like bags of rice. Hello Kitty was also there at the event. Though I was sad to see that Kitty was having some vision problems as she had to be escorted around the event. Understandable I guess since the Japanese-​English feline is nearly 40!
If you are looking for a taste of Japanese food and culture on the cheap, you definitely should visit this festival.

This is a smaller festival on the south side of the store. Some of the vendors are from the store and others are vendors who do the festival circuit.
Food — I had spam musubi, yakisoba, potstickers, shave ice, and sweet salty ice cream. I also sampled the veggie curry. For $ 2-​$ 3, you can get a nice sized portion. For me, 2 dishes was just right for my appetite plus desert. I’m from Hawaii — the shave ice is legit. They have azuki bean, ice cream, and li hing mui powder. The spam musubi was not the best I had, but it was decent and worth $ 2.
Kids — Games like ramune toss were available but it cost $ 1. You could buy ramune for $ 1 so that wasn’t a great deal. At another game, for $ 2, kids could catch fish in a blue plastic pool. I kept my kiddo away from that. I don’t want to take care of fish.
Contests — Eating contests. You heard me right. Who can eat a brick of tofu the fastest? Well… we saw a woman put it down against two men and kicked their asses. There was also a veggie curry eating contest and a ramune drinking contest (my partner came in second place).
There was even a celebrity appearance by HELLO KITTY! Nothing makes girls smile more than Hello Kitty.
Today is Saturday, which means pay to park. We parked in the lot and although Uwajimaya was busy, we immediately found a spot. We bought some groceries, took them to the car, and went back to enjoy the festival.