Yatai Yasube

Kochi has a street-stall drinking culture that has largely disappeared from the rest of Japan, and its emblem is gyoza. Yasube opened in 1945 and makes a small, thin-skinned dumpling fried until the base is deep brown and brittle, with a vegetable-heavy filling — closer to a crisp than to the plump versions sold elsewhere. They are eaten standing or on stools, with beer, late.

The format is the point. Opening is seven in the evening and closing is three in the morning, four on Saturdays, and Sunday is the rest day — this is a place built entirely around what people do after everything else has shut. There are several gyoza stalls along the same stretch and a permanent branch inside Hirome Market for anyone who wants it at a civilised hour, but the stall is the original arrangement.