Karasengorge Somen Nagashi

Flowing somen usually means a split bamboo chute down which noodles are sent past you once, with one chance to catch them. Kagoshima's version is different and this is where it was invented: a circular basin set into the table with water spinning round it, so the noodles circulate continuously and you fish them out at leisure. Every rotating somen machine in Japan descends from the one built here in 1962.

The reason it is at Karasengorge is the water. Springs at the foot of Mt. Kaimon produce a very large volume at a constant thirteen degrees, selected among Japan's hundred famous waters, and it is pumped straight through the basins — the noodles arrive genuinely cold. The site is municipally run, open every day of the year, and set in a wooded ravine. Set meals add grilled trout and carp from the same water.