“How much?!” Paul exclaims in horror.

We are staying in the Hotel Nikko Fukuoka, stylish, modern and immaculate.

We gaze at the photograph in the hotel information file.  A gorgeous swimming pool in a glass atrium, a gym, spa, sauna. 3000 yen per visit per person (fifteen squids, UK people).  Great if you have an afternoon to splash, soak and be massaged but we just need to work off some of the bulk that’s accumulated after so many (albeit healthy) dinners.  We decide to DIY Keep Fit on the cheap.

Paul is down to his boxer shorts and is running on the spot in our hotel room:, thump thump thump.  God help whoever’s in the room downstairs. “Hup two three four!”. He’s doing the Jane Fonda thing, minus leotard and pink legwarmers. For the next half hour we take turns to be aerobics instructor, making it up as we go along. I struggle when it’s Paul’s turn to guide us through the push ups. I’m laughing too hard and I keep collapsing in a heap.

We’ve worked up enough of a sweat to feel justified in our mission for our very short stay in Fukuoka (also, confusingly, known as Hakata), a port city on the north-eastern tip of Kyushu. Having indulged in a second sand steam bath in Ibusuki that morning, we didn’t arrive in Hakata until late afternoon – our sleek shinkansen traversing the island of Kyushu from bottom to top in one speedy swoop along about 300 kilometres.  Poor Hakata, so much more deserving of a long visit from us, but we were heading back eastwards the next day, so we only had that night to enjoy there.

We did, as I say, have a mission in this city.  Seek and find Tomo-chan, a yatai (street food stall) run by the friend of the sister of a friend of a friend who I was introduced to back in London. As it happens, Tomo-chan also featured on some photocopied gourmet guide pages for Hakata that Okuda san in London kindly brought us just before we left the UK.

Hakata is famous for its good food, and especially for its street stalls (yatai).

Row upon row of stalls line the river, port and streets all over the city.  Each of these yatai make me think of Dr Who’s Tardis.  Clearly, they’ve been wheeled to the location, a single package on wheels. But they open up to include a little roof, awnings, counters, grill cookers, steamers, shelves full of glasses, fridges….a whole little restaurant bar on wheels unfolds.  From the outside these look ever so inviting, the warm glow from the lanterns enticing you in, the voices of customers hidden away inside filtering out into the street; wafts of delicious smells make your mouth water. Cosily arranged so that customers lining the tiny counters feel tucked away intimately inside the noren (short curtains), the interior of the yatai is warmed by the rising heat from the steaming vats of oden (Japanese ”hotch potch”, so the translation goes – fish cakes of different shapes, flavours and sizes, whole eggs, chunks of daikon mooli, potato, all slow-stewed in a seaweed broth and eaten with yellow mustard). The proprietors busy themselves over yakitori (skewered chicken) charcoal grills, serve up ice-cold draught beer and warm sake to rosy-cheeked customers.

We take a long time to find Tomo-chan. We decide to walk from our hotel to add to the exercise quota.  Although we’ve been told which street it’s on, and that it’s opposite a big Japanese bank building, we get a bit lost. There aren’t any rows of stalls to be seen, and it looks an unlikely place to find a yatai.  We ask a passing office worker going home. He’s friendly and helpful, peers at our map under the light of a street light, squints at it, then at a speck of golden light opposite the vast road and says – “Isn’t that Tomo-chan, over there?”.  Sure enough. Tomo-chan’s stall squats, tiny, at the foot of some vast buildings.  We walk over to it – it’s tiny and from the lively conversation audible from outside the noren there seem to be five or so customers in there.  Suddenly I feel a bit shy – it’s so small, and our entrance feels like an intrusion – but I take a deep breath, push aside the noren and shuffle inside. There’s a pause in the conversation as the customers, a group of funky young twenty-somethings clock these one-and-a-half foreigners lumbering into the tiny space.

We squidge up next to them, order some beers. The conversation resumes again. We’re fine, settled in!

Two young men are manning the stall – one plays host and clearly knows the other customers quite well.  The other is standing, sweating, before the hot charcoal grill, cooking up the skewers to order.

In front of us at the counter, a glass chill cabinet (how? How? It’s just a tiny wagon stall!) is filled with skewered chicken, octopus tentacles, gingko nuts, slices of marinated beef rump, beef tongue, air dried shishamo – a slender, silvery fish – behind the young man chatting to us, two enormous pots, one filled with boiling water, the other with tonkotsu broth (pork stock), piles of ramen noodles, shelves of gleaming beer glasses, bottles. Beside him, the obligatory vat of steaming oden, and the smells from the tonkotsu, the oden, the charcoal grill on which skewers of juicy chicken morsels, marinated beef fillet are sizzling, all just make it irresistible.

We order, we eat, we order again. Whole skewered green capscicums, the charcoal roast rendering them soft and savoury, with a bit of a kick; gingko nuts, chewy and soft and nutty-tasting; plates of beef fillet (sagari) and beef tongue (tan), tender and oozing with a dark, juicy sauce. Shishamo fish, fresh off the grill, huge white scallops charcoal-grilled and dressed with a squeeze of lemon juice.

A few beers in and we are part of the crowd. We make our occasional contribution to the conversation.  Paul orders another beer – in Japanese.  I tell the chap behind the counter that we have come to Hakata just to eat here, and that the stall was recommended to us because Tomo-chan was run by “the friend of a sister of a friend of a friend back in London”. They ask the name of this friend of a friend.

Kondo san, I tell them.

Aaah!!! says the one manning the grill.  This stall’s owned by my brother, who isn’t here today.  But I think I know his friend Kondo san.

A connection! He knows who I’m talking about.

Is Kondo san a man? he asks.

Er, no.

Never mind!  He says he’s sure he’s heard the name, but his brother would know for sure.  Anyway, the food’s great, nothing else matters.  We’re just eternally grateful for this fabulous recommendation.  So we eat some more.

We want oden too, but we knew we couldn’t possibly leave without ordering one of the vast bowls of Hakata ramen, the specialty of this town, noodles in pork broth topped with bean sprouts, so we decide to reserve what little space we have left in our groaning stomachs for that.  Our neighbours, who had a head start on us, have already slurped theirs down and the sight, smell and sound of this was just too much.  We want ours NOW.

We watch our friend behind the counter expertly scoop two piles of ramen noodles up into a giant sieve scoop and drop them into boiling water.  Two bowls put out on the counter are filled with steaming, creamy tonkotsu broth. The noodles are vigorously drained of excess water (is he on a mini trampoline? Paul asks – for his draining action is very bouncy behind the counter) are dropped into the broth. Slices of pork, bean sprouts, spring onion are generously piled on top. Each steaming bowl us placed before us on the counter and we tuck in.

It’s heaven. The broth is rich, porky in a good way, mouthwatering; the noodles firm and pert, the spring onion adding the necessary zing. The delicate slices of marinated pork are tender, soft, the crowning glory on an absolutely great bowl of noodles.

By this time, another group of customers has arrived and the little stall is now full, all ten seats taken; convivial conversation flows, punctuated with laughter, while glass after glass of beer and sake is replenished. The charcoal grill sizzles, the proprietor’s brother fanning the glowing embers and wafting more tempting smells our way.  But our stomachs are beginning to protest, gently.

It was getting late and we had an early start in the morning. An hour and a half had slipped by quite easily and it was time to find our way back to the hotel. Weaving slightly, and loosening our belts, we saunter along the river, over the bridge, through the brightly-lit night-time city, Arriving back in our beautiful room in our hotel, we gaze out below us at the twinkling city and say a wistful goodbye.  Hakata, our one-night stand.  We loved what we’d seen of it.  And then, gazing down at our ramen-filled bellies, we knew that our encounter with Hakata had definitey made us fatta.  Paul, get those leg-warmers on.