As an island nation, Japan prides itself on its fresh and delicious seafood with an astonishing variety of regional specialties just waiting for you to try. If you have plenty of time and patience, you could travel around the country on a quest to discover all of these delicacies, but that's not possible for the usual tourist.

Luckily, there is one place, or rather one special occasion where you can savor some of the best seafood dishes this country has to offer, and that's the Sakana & Japan Festival, going on now until Sunday, March 3rd. Sakana in Japanese means "fish" and there's plenty of it as well as other seafood here.

There are rows and rows of stalls grilling all manner of fresh seafood in front of you, selling skewers, fritters, soups, stews, seafood rice bowls, croquettes, grilled dishes of all sorts, sushi, sashimi, everything in the sea and even a few meat dishes for good measure.

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Here is just a small sample of what we were able to try when we visited:

Double salmon rice bowl

This stall specializes in the ever-popular salmon, especially ikura (salmon roe).

One of their most popular offerings is a dish with equal parts ikura and minced salmon sashimi, a double salmon rice bowl. The ikura was so plentiful it flowed over onto the plate and the taste was just divine.

Grilled scallops with crab meat topping

Grilled in butter, this plump, succulent scallop was bursting with flavor. Combined with the toasted crab meat topping, it was a simple but delicious dish.

Seafood ramen

There are also noodle dishes at the festival, such as this tasty seafood ramen with crab. The broth was delicious and the noodles cooked al dente to perfection.

Special bento

This bento made in a collaboration between Tokyo Metro's magazine Metropolitana and Ishikawa Prefecture restaurant Jugatsuya was also excellent, with grilled yellowtail as the main dish. Since it's a bento, you can also take it back to your hotel room to eat later.

Sea urchin galore

Have you ever seen so much mouth-watering sea urchin on one rice bowl? We hadn't until we visited the festival today. It's a heavenly treat for uni lovers.

Bonito sandwich set

There are also seafood sandwiches to try. We recommend this semi-grilled katsuo (bonito) sandwich sprinkled with savory bonito flakes made by Sealuck in Yaizu city, Shizuoka Prefecture. The fries are seasoned with dashi and topped with the bonito flakes as well, a really tasty combination! You can also buy their bonito chips as a snack!

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Idol performances

In between sampling the best of Japan's regional seafood dishes, you can relax at the main stage where you can enjoy idol groups performing. When we visited, the girls of Pyuacco Reloaded were on stage.

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