With so much to taste, your only limitation is your appetite. Try not to overdo it on too many chargrilled chicken yakitori – or pork belly, a Fukuoka specialty – at a riverside yatai food stall, and weave through the part of Nagahamasengyo Fish Market never frequented by foreigners for the city’s favorite delicacy: uni (sea urchin). Inhale the rich aroma of your flannel drip coffee (locals say it’s extra smooth) at a trendy cafe, or slurp up umami noodles at your host’s best tonkotsu ramen spot. Motsunabe, a hearty stew made from offal, is a winter must-have (or, you could try its more docile sister, chicken mizutaki). Mackerel is at its freshest in Fukuoka – so fresh, it’s the only place in the world you can eat it as raw, sesame-marinated gomasaba. 

From traditional to trendy, simple to sophisticated, your local host can help you find it all in Fukuoka. Start on Nakasu Island in the city center, where, at 6pm, the riverside transforms into an atmospheric pop-up market: yatai – mobile food stalls serving street food – form a snaking line along the island’s edge, and locals descend to get their fill. Head to the neighboring area, hipster Daimyo, for a quick flannel drip coffee (or sake at a tachinomiya – standing bar – if that’s more your speed) with trendy twentysomethings and quirky otaku playing a boisterous card game. One mile south of Daimyo, congregate with hordes of hungry locals in restaurant-lined Shirogane – the perfect place to slurp down tonkotsu ramen in the city that invented it.