Taniguchiya

Fukui eats more fried tofu per household than any other prefecture in Japan, by a wide margin, and the reason is partly Jodo Shinshu Buddhism — this is the sect's heartland, and abura-age features in its memorial meals — and partly that Fukui's version is not a thin pouch but a slab. Taniguchiya's is about four centimetres thick and the size of a hand, deep-fried twice in the traditional way, crisp outside and still creamy in the middle.

The shop has been in the mountain village of Takeda since the Taisho period and now runs a restaurant beside the factory where the thing arrives as a course: one whole abura-age for ¥740, or as part of a set with soba or tofu cutlet. It is a single ingredient treated with complete seriousness, up a mountain road twenty minutes from Maruoka Castle, and there is usually a queue.