Fukuoka's food stalls cluster in two places, Nakasu and Tenjin, and have done for decades. At the entrance to Oyafuko street in Tenjin stands one called Kokin-chan, which has been trading there since 1968. Yaki ramen, fried ramen, is said to have started at that stall. Nobody set out to invent a regional dish.

The reason it exists at all is the heat of the place. In a Fukuoka summer nobody wants to drink a bowl of hot broth, and people still wanted noodles. The first owner worked out something that answered both.

Vegetables, pork, and finely sliced kamaboko go onto the hot iron together with thin noodles, and the pork bone broth is worked through all of it as it cooks down.

At the end it takes a house sauce and the braising liquid from dote-yaki poured over the top. Descriptions of it note that it carries more moisture than yakisoba does and is closer to monjayaki in consistency. Mixing Japanese mustard in partway sharpens the whole thing. It has been the last thing eaten at a stall on a Fukuoka night for over fifty years. What the dish does, in the end, is let you eat the broth instead of drinking it, which is exactly what the weather demanded.