Yatai... Hmmm... Yum!

One of the things Fukuoka is known for is its Yatai stalls. These are small mobile restaurants that are rolled out along the streets each night. They are a little like carts but you can pull up a seat and watch as the owners cooks you some noodles.

The specialty here is the ramen. Ramen is a noodle dish, with cooked noodles in a broth. Fukuoka Ramen is special because it is in a milky pork broth, I think the soup tastes a bit like boil up (so long as you haven't added watercress or puha! Yuck!), it comes with some meat and you add spring onions and a special garlic sauce. The trick seems to be in boiling the stock for hours and hours, so I am sure we could master it at home. They taste very good and I have met lots of people here who seem to be addicted. If you go into a Ramen restaurant you even get to choose how cooked you want your noodles. There are Ramen restaurants everywhere you go, but there is definitely something kind of fun about sitting in a Yatai sucking down your noodles. Of course here it is considered good manners to slurp them down... that way the cook knows you are enjoying them!