December 20, 2025

FUKUOKA: Toriden Hakata Honten (Autumn)

The cold and chilling weather as of now makes me thinking about Mizutaki – the Japanese chicken hotpot dish made of chicken and assorted vegetables and tofu, simmered in the essence-ful soupy rich chicken broth.

Sadly, we can’t get anything like that in KL. And I can only drool over the photos I took during the autumn days I savoured it in Fukuoka and also my first Toriden experience in Hakata .

This time, I managed to get the reservation online through TableCheck. Diners are required to book the course in advance and I booked the most basic course – TENJIN course for our group. Priced at ¥ 6,600 per person (tax included) and everyone loved this nutritious packed and very tummy warming meal.

The course comes with 2 types of appetizers (boiled toriden tamago with meat miso and seasonal vegetables), Hakata’s specialty goma saba (mackerel with sesame sauce), their signature Braised Chicken Wings, Hakata mizutaki with zosui (rice porridge) and the day’s dessert.

The November’s Course 2023 was more or less the same as March’s Course 2023; with a slight difference on the seasonal appetizer and the dessert. And this round, we were smart from our previous experience. The last round 4 of us had only one portion of rice, but this time for the six of us, we asked for 3 pax portion of rice to be made into zosui even though we were quite stuffed with the earlier dishes. This carbo ending was extremely comforting, very rich and absorbed all the essence from the broth.

Getting here:
About 2 minutes’ walk from Nakasukawabata Station 中洲川端

Toriden Tamago
Boiled egg sat on a bed of meat miso with beautiful attractive orangey egg yolk.

Seasonal appetizer

Here came the Mizutaki. We were served with a cup of soup to try its original flavour – rich and filled with chicken essence.

The soup appeared to be in creamy white. It was dosed with collagen and filled with the chicken essence. Toriden takes hours of slow boiling to achieve such result.

Condiments such as salt and yuzu kosho to season the chicken broth on our own preference; as the original soup was not added with any seasoning.

Boiled chicken with green onions and leek
A drizzle of their homemade citrusy ponzu lifted up the whole chicken dish. Very appetizing.

Hakata’s Specialty Goma Saba
My all-time favourite in Fukuoka too; fresh mackerel marinated in the savoury nutty and aromatic sesame sauce. So YUM!

Braised Chicken Wings
Glossy perfection juicy chicken wings and I must say the meat was really doink doink in texture.

Huge Meatballs with extra biting texture from the ground gizzard.

Vegetables such as cabbages, carrots and enoki were added into the soup to enhance the sweetness of the soup.

Lastly the Zosui or the rice porridge; made by using the rice cook in the leftover broth from cooking the chicken, meatballs and vegetables. The staff also added the egg and finally garnished it with chopped spring onions before serving. I got extra chopped spring onions because my mum and my aunt hate it! LOL