July 3, 2023

FUKUOKA: Toriden Hakata Honten

Aside from Tonkotsu Ramen , Mizutaki is another Fukuoka’s local specialty food that one must check out when travelling to Fukuoka. Mizutaki is Japanese chicken hot pot dish made of chicken and assorted vegetables and tofu, boiled or simmered in a large pot of broth.

Toriden Hakata Honten

Ahhhh, I once tried Toriden in Lot 10 The Table Isetan KL and I was hooked on its very essence-ful soupy chicken broth. Sadly, the one in KL was closed down and the only way to taste this delicious chicken hot pot dish is to have it in Fukuoka. After years, I have made it here!

Thanks to my friend Jessie for recommendation, I made it to Toriden Hakata Honten for their Mizutaki. I got the hotel’s receptionist to make the table reservation. Course meal is a must for table reservation (not sure about walk-in). It marks one of the best meals I had during my trip in Fukuoka. Rest assured, elderly will love this kind of food because it is nutrients-packed.

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

There are 3 courses in the menu for the diners to choose from: Tenshin (¥ 6,600 per pax), Hakata (¥ 7,700 per pax) and Nakasu (¥ 9,900 per pax); all three courses have mizutaki in them. The more expensive courses have more signature dishes and appetisers, also more options for your desserts.

We opted for their basic course which is the Tenshin, priced at ¥ 6,600 per pax (tax included). The course comes with 2 types of appertizers (toriden tamago and seasonal appetizer), Hakata’s specialty goma saba (mackerel), Braised chicken wings, Hakata mizutaki with zosui (rice porridge) and the day’s dessert

天神ベーシックコース

前菜2種【とり田たまご・季節の前菜】
博多名物ごまさば
手羽中の旨煮
博多水炊き・〆【雑炊、または担々麺［＋200円］、またはトリュフリゾット［＋1,100円］】
本日のデザート

First thing first, a bottle of Namazake! Fresh sake from the bottle always tastes extremely fresh and wow! To be honest, it paired so well with all the dishes in our Tenshin Course.

Kanpai!

Toriden Tamago
We started off with the soft-boiled egg came sitting on a bed of miso paste. The soft-boiled egg was so flavourful with semi solid orangey egg yolk, paired along with the miso paste, so delicious.

Seasonal appetiser
Great appetize booster with addition of sweet strawberry, it was extremely refreshing and made us looking forwards to our next course.

While we were enjoying our appetizers, the server started to prepare the pot of mizutaki. Firstly, we were given a cup of soup to try; at its own original flavour. It was so soupy, rich and filled with chicken essence. Very tummy comforting and it is something best to enjoy during a cool weather day.

Toriden uses whole chicken sourced from Kyushu to make its broth, taking up a total of 6 hours by slow boiling. The outcome of the soup appears in creamy white, dosed with collagen, filled with chicken essence and packed with nutrition.

No seasoning was added to the original soup, we were given some condiments such as salt and yuzu kosho to season the chicken broth, based on our own preference. I like it with a little dash of salt and yuzu kosho to spice up the flavours. So tummy comforting!

We were then served with boiled chicken, green onions and leek. Remember drizzle it with their homemade tangy citrusy ponzu sauce. This combination is super appetizing! The ponzu sauce brought out the flavours of the fresh chicken itself.

Hakata’s Specialty Goma Saba was extremely heart-wowing and refreshing! Again, why is this goma saba taste so yummy?!

The server then started to prepare the next dish by cooking the vegetables, tofu and minced meatball.

While waiting for the meatballs, we were served with Chicken Wings that is cooked with Kyushu soy sauce and mirin. The chicken wings was extremely tender and juicy, each of us gets two chicken wings, which were shimmered into glossy perfection, mega packed with flavours.

Meatballs were ready! The meatballs were extremely juicy and tender. As I recalled, each person get about four huge meatballs. The addition of ground gizzard gave an extra biting texture to the meatballs. Vegetables such as cabbages, carrots and enoki were added in to enhance the sweetness of the soup and meatballs.

The last dish on mizutaki, we were served with the carbohydrate, the rice that was made into zosui, or rice porridge, by using rice and the leftover broth from cooking the chicken, meatballs and vegetables. If you don’t fancy rice, you can top up ¥ 200 per pax for tantanmen, or truffle risotto at ¥ 1,100 per pax.

As we were all extremely stuffed with the earlier course, we asked the server to cut down the rice portion and make only one portion to share among four of us. The broth was heated up, added in the rice and stirred in an egg to make the rice porridge.

Ahhhh, Zosui was so comforting! We kinda regretted to have only one portion of rice to make into this zosui. It absorbed all the essence from all the cooking earlier in this broth. The Zosui was very flavourful, essence-ful that all of us wished we have asked for more pax portions to be made into Zosui.

Today’s dessert – Toriden’s Signature Panna Cotta . It was creamy milky and hinted with bittersweet matcha! So creamy milky with melt in mouth texture! Must have!!! (Miss it now mou, Jessie?)

You can also purchase some of the goods from the shop so that you can recreate the mizutaki in your home country. Yuzu kosho, green tea, mizutaki stock. Well, let’s see if I could bring ‘em home next time.