Eating Japan Part 8 – A Yatai Stall

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A Yatai stall looks so alien that very few westerners eat there.  I only took the plunge with some Japanese hosts.  They are found in the Hakata region of Fukuoka, the main city on Kyushu island, where my eldest daughter is at university. The stalls, complete with portable kitchens,  appear as if by magic at about 6pm and serve food fast and furiously, mainly to salarymen, until the early hours. I tried to take a picture of the chef, but he was excessively shy and every time I took out my camera he put a towel over his head. But he had no reason to be ashamed of his food.  The picture below is of some very basic, traditional fare which looks much more gruesome than it tastes.  The strange looking object at the top is fish, whose name eluded me, and the egg has been marinated in soy sauce to make the white look like a shell – which is a good joke at the expense of the tourist.  

It’s worth trying this food at least once; I’d say it’s the Japanese equivalent of jellied eel, of which certain Londoners are exceedingly fond, but how genuinely I’ve never been able to determine.