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The 1st Shiga B-grade (B-kyu) Gourmet Battle was held in Otsu on July 30-31, 2011 on the Hama-Otsu lakefront. B-class (B-kyu in Japanese) gourmet is food that is cheap and aimed for the working class. It could also be good 'ol home cooking. *Note that this event is no longer held annually.
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B-grade food festivals have proven to be popular in various parts of Japan and Shiga finally started its own. With an estimated 120,000 attendees over the two-day period, Shiga's first B-class food fest was wildly popular as you can see by this crowd
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Long lines were the norm at most food booths lined along the lakefront.
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There was hardly any crowd control nor crowd direction. We just had to work our way through the lines when moving to another booth. Some lines extended all the way to the hotel behind the park.
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All the B-grade food served had some homegrown ingredient from Shiga. Whether it was Omi-gyu beef, red devil's tongue, Omi-mai rice, or Biwako fish. This is yaki-udon noodles.
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They employed a ticket system, so we had to buy a book of tickets. Each ticket was worth 100 yen and the food was priced from 100 to 500 yen.
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Cold noodles with Omi beef.
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I went on the second day in mid-afternoon and already many booths had sold out. This is a "Sold out" (kanbai 完売) sign.
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However, I did manage to buy some food at a few booths, and all were very good. Tasty like I've never tasted before. Unique and original dishes I would say. This is red devil's tongue with gravied bread.
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Fried fish and sweet beans over rice. Interesting combination.
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Omi Italian sausage. Hot dog like I've never tasted before. Very good.
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Fish from Okishima island. 200 yen per pack.
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Matcha shaved ice for dessert. I ended up buying two 1000-yen ticket books. Cheap food, but you want to try as much as possible and end up spending around 2,000 yen.
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It was a gourmet battle, so we could vote for our favorite B-class food by throwing away the wooden chopsticks in the these trash bins for each food booth. They weighed these bags of chopsticks and the heaviest won the battle.
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The B-grade gourmet battle was part of the Hama-Otsu Summer Festa which included a free jazz concert. I'm sure they will hold this B-class Gourmet food festival every year. Don't miss it, and go early.
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