Pairon

Jajamen is one of the three noodle dishes Morioka is known for and it is the strangest. Flat warm noodles arrive with a mound of miso-based meat paste, cucumber and spring onion on top and no soup at all; you mix it, add garlic, vinegar and chilli oil to taste, and eat. Then, when the noodles are gone, you crack a raw egg into the bowl, hand it back, and it returns as a soup called chiitantan — the same bowl, boiling noodle water, more miso, egg.

Pairon started as a stall in 1953, opened by Takashina Kansho, who had eaten a dish like it in Manchuria. The shop has been serving essentially one thing for over sixty years. The main branch is by Morioka Castle park and is open from nine in the morning.