During my recent trip to Fukuoka with my family, we tried a few restaurants from the different malls near Hakata Station and Tenjin. This post will share our dining experience in these restaurants in Fukuoka.
Hakata
If you are staying near Hakata station, there are 3 shopping malls: AMU Plaza, Hankyu Department Store, and KITTE Hakata. A wide range of restaurants are located on these shopping malls’ 9th and 10th floors.
AMU Plaza
AMU Plaza has quite a lot of character goods. In addition to the Pokemon Center and Disney store, it also has a Peanuts Cafe on the 10th floor.
Bancho Charcoal Grilled Chicken
Most Japanese restaurants are small and it is difficult to accommodate big groups of family and friends to sit together. For our first dinner in Fukuoka, my cousin booked a table for 12 at Momoyaki Bancho Charcoal Grilled Chicken, which is located on the 10th floor of AMU Plaza.
We ordered a course meal that had salad, appetizers, charcoal grilled chicken, chicken hotpot, etc. You can check out the menu here. The food tastes really good and I like the ambiance of the restaurant too.
Peanuts Cafe
For Peanuts fans, be sure to check out the pop-up cafe in AMU Plaza. The pop-up cafe is open until April 2024 only. We tried to get seats in the afternoon, around 3 to 4 pm, but the cafe was very full. Hence, we made a reservation and decided to return after 8 pm.
The cafe is beautifully decorated with Snoopy and friends everywhere – the ceiling, the chairs, the coasters, the napkins, and even the utensils. There is a corner in the cafe where you can see all kinds of Snoopy collectibles. While waiting for the food, be sure to check out the shop beside it. There is also a gacha machine if you are into capsule toys.
The cafe is located on the 10th floor of AMU Plaza. The cafe serves pasta and burgers, and special drinks such as Berry Float, Passionfruit Float, etc. In addition, they also have pancakes, coffee jelly, and mango pudding for desserts. For more information, visit the official website here.
KITTE Hakata
Among the three shopping malls near Hakata Station, I found that the restaurants in KITTE Hakata seem more suitable for my family, especially elderly family members.
Heart Bread Antique
We passed by a bakery on the ground floor of KITTE Hakata. We saw the staff bring out freshly baked pastries, so we went inside to check it out. The freshly baked pastries smell so good. What’s more, they have cat-shaped bread and cakes. We bought the three-colored cat bread back to the hotel. To my surprise, it has three different flavors. The dark brown color is chocolate, light brown has walnut and the white part is ordinary bread. The bread tastes so good, it’s tender and moist, and very cute too! They also have other kinds of pastries such as bagels, croissants, cupcakes, etc.
Obon de Gohan
Obon de Gohan has a wall full of attractive meals displayed. The restaurant is located on the 9th floor of KITTE Hakata. Most set meals include a salad, soup, appetizer, and main course. They don’t have a table for 12 so we had to sit separately.
They were short on staff, so we had to wait for 15 minutes to be seated, even though there were enough seats. We ordered different sets of meals, the food arrived almost at the same time. I was surprised at the serving, I was expecting a small bowl of beef rice included in my set meal, but it was bigger than I expected.
Adan Okinawan Cuisine (沖縄料理 あだん KITTE博多店)
Located on the 9th floor of KITTE Hakata, Adan is a restaurant that serves Okinawa cuisine. Okinawa is famous for its pork and bitter melon. I haven’t been to Okinawa but it has always been on my to-visit list. The restaurant looks big but it has limited seats. They have horigotatsu tables and regular tables. Although horigotatsu tables have a space beneath the table to stretch our legs, our elderly parents have difficulty getting up after the meal. If you are also traveling with elderly family members, you might want to request to sit at a regular table instead.
We also had a bit of difficulty deciding what to order because we did not understand some of the items on the menu even when they had already been translated into English. I found that the English menu on their website is more useful than the translated menu on their tablet.
Jin Din Rou
On our last day, we ate at Jin Din Rou on the 10th floor of KITTE Hakata. It is a Taiwanese cuisine restaurant. Instead of ordering the usual pork soup dumplings, we ordered Oolong Tea soup dumplings, Yuzu flavored soup dumplings, garlic chicken, vegetables, and rice. They have quite a lot of branches in Japan. If you are interested, you can make a phone reservation first.
Nana KITTE Marunouchi (菜な KITTE 丸の内店)
Nana is a modern Kyoto restaurant, also located on the 9th floor of KITTE Hakata. Given the good reviews that we read online, we wanted to try this, but they were already fully booked and couldn’t accept our reservation. They have private rooms and can accommodate big groups, so it’s best to make a reservation in advance. If you’ve tried this, let me know in the comments below, so I know what to order on my next visit!
Canal City Hakata
Restaurants are mostly located on the B1 and 1st floor of the North Building and the 4th and 5th floor of the Center Walk of the shopping mall. We did not walk to the Center Walk to check out the restaurant options there, but you can check the list of restaurants here.
Kirby Cafe
While looking for a dinner place at Canal City, we stumbled into the Kirby Cafe. While I am not a Kirby fan, the cafe looks pretty attractive. Unfortunately, the cafe was full when we visited during dinner peak hours, so we did not have the chance to try it.
For Kirby fans, be sure to make a reservation online before visiting. Similar to Peanuts Cafe, there is a shop with Kirby merchandise just beside the cafe. You can go into the shop without making a cafe reservation. The cafe is located at B1F, North building of Canal City Hakata.
Ikinari Steak
For our final night in Fukuoka, we decided to have steak at Ikinari Steak. The restaurant is located on the first floor of the Canal City (North Building). The restaurant has an English, Chinese, and Korean menu, with pictures. It made ordering easy and convenient. Most of the food on the menu is beef, but there is also chicken steak available. You can also upgrade the meal to have salad and soup, or salad and rice.
After choosing the size of the steak, we have to choose the sauce. The sauce choices are onion, cheese, demi-glaze sauce, and Japanese-style ponzu sauce.
Tenjin
Tenjin is one of the famous downtown districts in Fukuoka. It is a great place for shopaholics because it has several branded international shops and department stores in this area. Besides shopping, Tenjin is also an attractive place for food lovers, as it has a wide selection of high-quality restaurants.
Solaria Plaza
Yakiniku Hachi Hachi Solaria
We went to Yakiniku Hachi Hachi located on the 6th floor of Solaria Plaza in Tenjin. The restaurant has a cozy atmosphere, and the staff is helpful and speaks English. The lunch set menu did not have an English translation but they gave us an English ala carte menu. The staff also gave us some recommendations on what to order. Unlike most of the yakiniku restaurants that I’ve searched that only serve beef, Hachi Hachi has other types of meat including chicken and pork.
We ordered two lunch sets with premium beef and ordered some ala carte chicken and pork.
Tenjin Underground Shopping Center
As the name implies, the Tenjin Underground shopping center is located underground, conveniently linking the two subway stations – Tenjin and Tenjin-Minami subway stations. The underground shopping center is decorated with European-style interiors and features over 150 shops selling a wide range of products.
Soy Cafe
We passed by the Soy Cafe located in the Tenjin underground shopping center. There were various interesting flavors of soybean bun such as cheese, mugwort, black sesame, rum raisin white chocolate, matcha, etc.
We purchased a few of the soybean bun and ate it while taking a break in the hotel. It tastes similar to the mochi bun that we have in Hong Kong.
Convenience Store
There are a lot of interesting foods in convenience stores in Japan. My favorite things to check out are the snack corner, ice cream, cakes, and sweets. Last time, I found a really good Matcha flavored mochi ice cream. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it anymore, so we bought something else.
Ice cream
It was pretty cold at night when we visited Fukuoka in January, but the cold did not stop us from having some ice cream. We dropped by the nearest Family Mart to check out the ice cream available. We purchased strawberry mochi ice cream, dark chocolate Godiva ice cream, and milk chocolate Godiva ice cream. The strawberry ice cream is okay, it has a rich strawberry flavor. But if you let me choose, my pick is the Godiva ice cream, couldn’t go wrong with Godiva! If you like chocolate, give this a try. It is a bite-sized ice cream that is individually packed. Great for sharing!
Souffle Pudding
Another thing that we tried is Souffle Pudding. This is a great choice if you are craving for after-dinner dessert. The souffle on top of the pudding is light and fluffy. The egg pudding at the bottom tastes really good too!
