Sushi Night in Fukuoka

We spent most of our time in Fukuoka exploring the casual food scene but we did have a more serious sushi meal one evening at a restaurant called Sushi Kuma. 

Post-COVID Getaway

It was a wise choice in retrospect to have picked Kyushu as our first vacation destination post-COVID. The short flight from Hong Kong to Fukuoka and the proximity between the airport and downtown meant we could fully spend more time on the ground during our 5-day holiday, and so we booked our air ticket as soon as the news broke about the lifting of travel restrictions, then there’s a long 3 months wait before we actually took off at the end of November.  

Chicken Two Ways

If Ramen and Motsunabe were the Top 2 dishes best representative of Fukuoka, Yakitori is perhaps a close third. There’s no lack of choices for top Yakitori, or chicken skewers, restaurant in the city, my only problem was the lack of time to try them all. This time I happened to stumble across one near to my ryokan specializing in grilled chicken skin.

Unagi in Kagoshima

Almost every guide book on Kagoshima pointed visitors to Unagi no Sueyoshi restaurant as one of the must-go places to eat. This 80-year-old restaurant specializes in Kabayaki Unagi, or grilled freshwater eels which were sourced from the nearby Osumi Peninsula. In fact I didn’t know it’s one of the biggest production areas for this famous Japanese ingredients until I started to plan my trip, apparently with the underground water best suited for eel farming.

The Town of Hot Sand Bath

After spending two nights in Fukuoka, I rode on the Kyushu Shinkansen train and headed south to Ibusuki, one of the many famous onsen town in Kagoshima prefecture. The ride turned out to be longer than I originally thought, with the 1.5 hour high-speed train ride getting me to Kagoshima City than another 1.5 hour on the slower commuter train along the coastline of Satsuma Peninsula to Ibusuki town on the southeastern tip.

Slurp-Worthy: Kagoshima Edition

To any ramen lovers, Kyushu is heaven for the region was known to be the birthplace of the Japanese noodle bowl and there’s no lack of shops – big or small – offering the bowl of hearty, comforting, high-quality noodles in soup served in a variety of condiments and styles. While the Hakata-style ramen, one rooted from Fukuoka in the north, was the more prevalent styles, partly thanks to a few popular chains opening up branches across Japan and overseas, there were others offering something different, like those in Kagoshima, the prefecture in south of Kyushu.

Slurp-Worthy: Fukuoka Edition

Of course whilst in Kyushu one has to stick in a ramen meal or two, as that is the very dish the region is perhaps most famous for. At home we are lucky to have a few famous Kyushu-based ramen shops setting up branches overseas over the last few years, but still, one never beat the bowls served in Kyushu, particularly Fukuoka which was considered to be the epicenter of ramen cuisine. And I was glad to have a couple that has not yet made their way to Hong Kong.

Retail Therapy

I was surprised that it snowed and sleeted, at times heavily, during my stay in Kyushu, especially during my first stop in Fukuoka. That means I ended up spending more time indoors, shopping and chilling in a much slower pace, which was not bad an alternative, given I didn't have anything particular in mind to go or do anyway.

Quick Sushi Lunch in Fukuoka

I was more into casual street food whilst in Kyushu for my recent trip but I did go for one simple sushi lunch in Fukuoka nonetheless. Sushi Kawasho is an old sushi restaurant opened in 1947 now with 2 branches, one in Nishi-nakasu district and another, one that I went, inside Hotel Nikko near Hakata train station.

Seiromushi Pit Stop

With time to spare on our last day of the journey before catching the return flight home from Fukuoka early evening, we made a slight detour to visit the town of Kashima right near the boundary between Saga and Nagasaki prefectures for a morning stroll along the quiet path known as Sakagura Dori, or Sake Breweries Street, lined with sake breweries housed in old buildings dated back to the late Edo period.

Then we headed north and stopped by the town of Saga on our way for a quick lunch at Kira, a restaurant specializes in beef cuisine. The restaurant, with a few branches around Kyushu and in Tokyo in addition to its original Saga location, is owned by JA Saga, the regional farm cooperatives. They are the champions for fresh farm products from the region, especially Saga Beef, perhaps their best known export famous for the rich wagyu meat taste and marbled fat.

Abalone Cuisine at Karatsu

After spending 2 nights in Hiroshima, we began the second half of our journey with a road trip across Saga Prefecture in the western part of Kyushu. We took up our rental car early enough in the morning at our starting point of Fukuoka so we managed to reach our first stop, the coastal town of Karatsu right on time for lunch. And we dropped by this roadside diner-style restaurant called Uomata, a place recommended by our friend C whom we had dinner with at Hiroshima just the night before.