Kyushu Food– Famous Ramen, Street Food & Southern Japan Cuisine –
Kyushu is the southernmost of Japan’s main islands and is known for bold flavors and diverse regional cuisine. The region includes prefectures such as Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Kagoshima, and Oita.
Kyushu food features famous dishes such as tonkotsu ramen, mentaiko, and chicken nanban, along with many seafood and hot pot dishes.
Explore traditional foods from the Kyushu region and discover the culinary culture of southern Japan.
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Shio Tomato (潮トマト)
Adding seawater to tomato soil sounds as if it should make the fruit salty. Yet in Hiji, a small town on Beppu Bay in Oita Prefecture, growers use carefully controlled seawater cultivation for a different reason. It limits how much water... -
Shiroshita Karei (城下かれい)
Below the ruins of a castle on Beppu Bay, fresh water seeps up through the seabed. Hiji Town in Oita Prefecture gives its local marbled flounder a name of its own: Shiroshita Karei. It is not a separate species, but a regional name shape... -
Hyugadon (ひゅうが丼)
A bowl of hot rice arrives topped with slices of raw tuna, glossy with a sweet sesame-soy sauce. That bowl is Hyugadon (ひゅうが丼), a Japanese marinated tuna rice bowl from Tsukumi in Oita Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. People als... -
Shiraore (白折)
Browse the tea shelves of a shop in Fukuoka or Saga and you'll often find a bag that looks almost too plain beside the polished gyokuro tins. It holds pale, flat little stems instead of dark, needle-like leaves, and its label carries two... -
Anno Imo (安納芋)
Picture a roasted sweet potato split open on a cold evening. The skin is wrinkled and dark, while the flesh glows golden orange with a glossy, syrup-like surface. This is the image most often associated with Anno Imo (安納芋), a Japanese... -
Shikuwasa Drink (シークワーサードリンク)
Shikuwasa drink is Okinawa's everyday citrus beverage, made from a small green fruit called Citrus depressa. It tastes sharply sour with a green, faintly bitter edge, so almost nobody drinks it straight. Instead, locals dilute it with co... -
Gurukun (ぐるくん)
Gurukun is Okinawa's prefectural fish, and most visitors first meet it as a whole small fish split open and deep-fried until the bones crunch. Locals call the dish gurukun no karaage. It tastes mild and clean rather than strong, so it su... -
Karasumi (からすみ)
Slice a piece of karasumi paper-thin, put it on your tongue, and wait a second. The salt hits first. Then something richer arrives, closer to aged cheese than to fish, and it lingers well after the piece has gone. Quick answer Karasumi (... -
Kanzarashi (かんざらし)
Kanzarashi is one of those quiet local sweets that instantly evokes a place. In this case, that place is Shimabara, a spring-fed town in Nagasaki. On a hot day, a bowl of it feels like a small blessing. So what exactly is kanzarashi? It ... -
Okinawa Zenzai (沖縄ぜんざい)
Okinawa zenzai breaks every rule you thought you knew about Japanese sweets. On the mainland, after all, zenzai means a steaming bowl of sweet red bean soup. In Okinawa, order zenzai and you get a mountain of shaved ice. Beneath that sno...
