In order to celebrate Kuniko’s birthday, we had made a plan in February to head to Hakata, a district in the big city of Fukuoka in Kyushu, in order to partake in the food culture there. When someone mentions Hakata, the conversation inevitably leads to food. Being pretty hardcore foodies ourselves we wanted to taste it firsthand. In a sort of coincidental discovery, Kuniko had come across an article on the internet describing a Chinese restaurant in Hakata that served what they called a “dai-rompo” – a bigger version of one of our favorite dim sum dishes, “sho-rompo” (“dai” means big and “sho” means small) so that served as an anchor for the trip.
In advance of the trip in February we booked bullet train tickets and a hotel, and then while trying to make a reservation at the “dai-rompo” restaurant they told us that their Chinese chef was planning a trip home to China for the Chinese New Year, and the restaurant would be closed during our planned visit. We are so serious about food that we rescheduled the bullet train tickets and the hotel, and shifted the whole trip to March, instead.
So it was with great anticipation that we got out of bed very early on Saturday morning and took the first train out to Nishi Akashi station, and then caught a bullet train southwest to the “third” island of Japan, Kyushu.
On the train there was sort of a party atmosphere – most people were traveling for sightseeing and fun – and we couldn’t resist buying a couple of Minoh beers from the passing vendor trolley. We’ve been a fan of Minoh Beer for a long time – Yoshi and I even paid a visit to the tiny brewery for a tour and tasting – so it was sort of an imperative to drink their limited edition pale ale (with cute little bullet trains on the label) while traveling at high speed towards culinary bliss.
Traveling in Japan always feels a little too “easy” for me. We can speak the language, our phones can access the internet at all times, and we are exploring one of the safest countries in the world. So although I get the sense of travel, I also feel a little like we’re just on a regular old shopping trip. Going into Hakata station I felt just like going into Osaka station – except everyone stood on the escalator in the opposite side.
Our first stop was for beef tongue and (another) morning beer at a place right inside the station. Kuniko did all the research for this trip, and she billed this place as one of the only places we could eat and drink before lunchtime near the station (the “and drink” is the important part of this requirement). There was already a pretty long line of people waiting to get in, so we lined up and put in some waiting time. The tongue was great – sliced into thin strips and grilled, with some local side dishes and slices of lemon. We negotiated the dishes without the rice (which is apparently an unusual request) and then dug in. The “morning beer” turned out to be a tiny beer served in the morning, so we ended up with another round of those, and then we were feeling damn good walking out of the restaurant and ready to explore a new city.
Fukuoka (and the Hakata area within it) is a port town, just like Kobe and Osaka, and so was subject to more foreign influence than other Japanese cities over time. It felt very similar to what we are used to where we live, from the rivers running through the town, to the large groups of Korean and Chinese tours, and everything was laid out to make it easy to perambulate.
Kuniko led us through a fairly regimented schedule of delicious foods based on hours and hours of extensive research. Rather than eat full meals at each place we did spot ordering to be able to enjoy more variety without overfilling our poor tummies. It wasn’t all food, though – we got in some shrines, gardens and temples, and we even made a journey into Buddhist hell. More on that later.
We ate gyoza in an interesting café at the top of a shopping mall, which apparently was serving a Chinese lunch buffet. Although purportedly a Chinese restaurant it felt more like a modern Italian bar, but they had no problems serving us only a big plate of gyoza and some beer to wash them down. The gyoza here was rated number one in the city by the citizens of Fukuoka (not quite sure about the validity of the voting system) and they were certainly delicious. The wrappers of the gyoza we ate on this trip were generally thicker than the wrappers we normally eat in Kansai. I liked the thicker wrappers, Kuniko preferred the thinner ones. The thicker wrappers did absorb a lot more oil however, so I fear we went over the recommended daily calorie intake after the first two bites.
Other stops on Saturday included a few supermarkets, a standing bar to sip sparkling and taste the local oden variation, and a beautiful expansive park surrounded a lake in the center of the city. We sat on some benches and enjoyed the warm, sunny weather. It felt good after what seemed like a long winter. Finally the time had come to make the pilgrimage to our main event – the dai-rompo. We found the restaurant, Marco Kitchen, which had an odd sort of atmosphere more like a coffee shop, and our server (who had a very un-Japanese mohawk haircut and small bones pushed through his earlobes) led us to our table. We were the first customers of what looked like many to come – they had slips of paper on the table for all the upcoming reservations that night.
We kept things simple, with a couple of warmup gyoza, a few crab and shrimp shumai, and then the server brought over a big basket and we could behold the splendor of the dai-rompo. Our Mohican/Japanese server seemed to sense our excitement with the event (maybe the scramble for my camera tipped him off) and he placed the basket in front of us with a dramatic flair, and then kindly served each dai-rompo into a small bowl in front of us. He picked up the softball-sized soup dumpling with just two chopsticks and a lot of confidence, and when the dai-rompo was lifted the bottom of the dumpling bulged and strained downward under the weight of all the soup inside. Luckily we could go to work on the dai-rompo while it was safely in a bowl. It was a fun experience to eat a new dish, and try to figure out the best way to go about it. With sho-rompo we bite into the edge, suck out all the steaming hot soup, and then swallow the rest in one go. Obviously the traditional technique wasn’t going to work here, but we ended up breaking the wrapper and then eating the rest as if it was a wonton soup or something similar. Fun, delicious, and well worth the effort it took to make it happen.
From there we went back out into Hakata to see what else the city had to offer. Walking past a video arcade I saw a huge display of “Space Invaders” – a ten foot tall screen and two “laser” guns mounted several feet in front with seats. We had to play it – and it was a blast. It was called “Space Invaders Frenzy” and it was a great combination of retro-nostalgic graphics, LED lights and frantic twitch gaming. Out on the riverside we wanted to try the food stands that are a symbol of the food culture in Hakata, and so we walked along an area that was lined with about 10-12 temporary restaurants outdoors. We love eating outside when we travel, and it was nice to give it a try in Japan. For some reason it really hasn’t caught on in Japan (maybe because of the extreme weather in winter and summer) so it was a rare chance. We chose a place at random, and were immediately surprised how brusque and decidedly un-friendly our Japanese cooks were. They had a sort of “rough” feeling about them, and I wondered vaguely if there was an organized crime angle here that I didn’t know about. Didn’t stop us from eating more food though, and we ordered some yakiramen (basically fried noodles, no soup) and some tamagoyaki with spicy cod roe rolled up inside. Washed down with two beers and then we were on our way. We probably would have stayed longer if the atmosphere had been more friendly, but hospitality was not the priority at this particular food stand. They were probably grumpy because customers always leave after just one dish.
That night we ended up at two more places – again, just picking and choosing specific dishes and then moving on. We had bite-sized gyoza at a place called Tetsunabe. These gyoza were much smaller than the ones we had eaten earlier in the day (still can’t believe this was all in the same day), and the thick wrappers had kind of fused together during cooking making it hard to divide them into the aforementioned bite size.
Our last stop was at an izakaya with a unique ordering system. At the front of the restaurant you paid for slips of paper that correspond with the dish you want at a digital machine using cash, take the slips to the kitchen (or the bar, depending on what you ordered) and then the staff handed over your food and/or drink when it was ready. It was really cheap, with a lively atmosphere and I had a good time there. The food was salty and simple and really about promoting more drinking which at this stage we were happy to do. Good times!
So we did a little more drunken shopping at the local convenience store, took a couple of painkillers and some stomach settling medicine just in case, and then crashed out in our business hotel for the evening.
We woke up fairly early with our stomachs still full from the previous day’s food-a-thon. It was a very long and very high calorie day, but we were pleased to discover that according to our phone we had managed to offset the damage a little with 33,000 steps for the day.
As you might expect we had a little slower start to the day, and we began by taking a short train ride out of town to visit the Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine – a famous shrine that attracts people because of its founder’s philosophy of education and success. We didn’t have any particular educational requirements to overcome however the location proved to be a great place to see plum blossoms. The street approaching the shrine was lined with shops, many of them selling umegae-mochi – sweet beans wrapped in mochi and then fried inside a pancake griddle until browned. Even with my full stomach I was able to pack down a couple of those.
The founder of Dazaifu Tenmangu was a big fan of plum trees, and it showed. We enjoyed walking around seeing the different colors and stages of the blossoms, and also petting metal cows and photographing a demonic unicorn statue. Things were interesting around the shrine.
We spent a while strolling through the grounds, we sent a little prayer up to the god of education, and then wandered back down the shopping street to the main train station. Believe it or not I felt like I could eat a hot bowl of noodles, so we stepped into Ichiran, a local chain of ramen restaurants that recently made the jump to the national level. They have a unique serving system that was more memorable than the noodles we ate there.
After buying a ticket we sat down at an individual booth with walls on the side and a small curtain in front. Imagine eating lunch in a voting booth and you get the general idea. The curtain opens at some point, and two arms come out of the curtain and point out various things including some paperwork to fill out so that you receive the noodles exactly the way you want them. I started on my paperwork and the arms disappeared and the curtain closed, while the female staff behind the curtain said that what was happening behind the curtain “is a secret”.
After finishing more paperwork than I typically associate with a bowl of noodles the disembodied arms reappeared to take the information away and there was nothing left to do but stare at the curtain and wait for the food. It didn’t take long, and soon Kuniko and I were slurping noodles side by side in our respective voting booths, with both the design of the booth and the mouthfuls of noodles preventing any sort of conversation. It was an interesting system, but the noodles didn’t seem all that special to me. I guess I’m not a big ramen fan in general.
Back to Hakata, and this time we walked from the train station, through what seemed to be a red-light district, and then found our way to Tochoji Temple. Kuniko led the way inside where we could see the largest wooden Buddha in Japan (sorry, no pictures allowed). The workmanship of the Buddha was detailed and exceptionally done. I stood for a long time admiring the lines and creases of the wood that formed the serene face.
The real treat was behind the Buddha, as there was an exhibit explaining the concept of hell as described by some Buddhist texts, which turned out to be being cast into the darkness. You had the opportunity to walk through total darkness, with only a handrail to guide you to the end. I assume in real hell you don’t get the handrail.
I walked into the situation with none of this knowledge, so I had to kind of figure this out later. We walked through the darkness, and Kuniko quickly went out ahead of me. I was much slower, and used my right hand to wave around in front of me and perhaps prevent any major collisions or demon attacks. About halfway through my hand hit a metal ring attached to the wall at about waist level, and I thought it an odd sort of thing to run into in the dark. Later Kuniko asked me if I had found the ring – she hadn’t – and I realized that apparently there was a goal to the exercise other than to merely escape. Buddhist hell was pretty cool.
Our last stop in Hakata was back at the train station. We had tickets on an early afternoon slow bullet train back home, so we did some souvenir shopping for the neighbors. With about a half hour to kill before departure we stopped at an odd little gyoza place that served gyoza with cilantro and gyoza with plum sauce, and cheap sparkling wine by the glass. Our server poured the glasses to the top which was nice, but as we were leaving we discovered two cockroaches running around behind us which was not so nice. I think the server realized what had happened and she looked a little broken hearted.
Before boarding the slower bullet train we picked up some beer and a lunch box stuffed with interesting things we rarely eat (deep fried pork cutlet wrapped in sushi rice? Sure!) and then caught a ride home. The slower train had much bigger seats, so I even got in some sleep on the way back. There was a rare power outage somewhere down the bullet train line leading to an hour delay – something pretty unusual in Japan – but we had enough beer and food to avoid starvation.
Fukuoka was nice, and I think we got a good sense of the area and the food culture there. I guess we’ll need to put our mind to the problem of which city in Japan we need to visit next. Back to the internet for some more food research!
