Eating in Fukushima
Try these dishes while you are here.
Try these dishes while you are here.
Order the first one and work down the list.
We recommend ordering this one first.
Flat wavy noodles in clear soy broth. The town has one of the highest densities of ramen shops in Japan, and some open at 07:00.
Buckwheat noodles eaten with a spring onion instead of chopsticks — you bite the onion as you go. Ouchi-juku.
Breaded pork cutlet dipped in sweet sauce and laid on rice with shredded cabbage.
The prefecture grows a great many, and they are picked from July. Sold soft and ready to eat.
Small shops, no English sign outside, and worth the walk.
An izakaya is where people eat and drink at the same time — you order a few small dishes instead of one plate each. This one buys its fish from the Iwaki city market.
Kitakata eats ramen for breakfast. Flat curly noodles in a clear broth, under so much pork that you cannot see them.
Fukushima fries its gyoza packed in a ring the size of the pan, then turns the whole disc onto a plate in one piece. This is the shop that started it, in 1953.
Ouchi-juku is a street of thatched houses that was a post town on the old road. Here the soba comes with a whole raw spring onion instead of chopsticks. You bite it as you go.
Koriyama invented this in the 1970s: one thick slice of white bread with sweet milk cream spread to the edges. Every bakery in the city makes its own version.
A miso maker since the 1830s. The cellar behind the shop is now a room with a sunken hearth, where skewers of tofu, konnyaku and mochi are stood around the coals and painted with miso.
Shirakawa ramen is cut by hand, so the noodles curl unevenly and hold the broth. The soup is clear soy and the pork is sliced thick.
Tama-yokan is bean jelly sealed into a small round pouch. The shop opens before eight, three minutes from the station.
Rice is steamed inside a round box bent from cedar, with the toppings laid on top, and comes to the table in the box. Aizu dishes are served alongside it.
A steamed bun made with glutinous rice and millet, filled with sweet bean paste. The shop says the two grains together give it its chew, and steams them fresh.