Shirunashi Tantanmen

Soupless dandan noodles are a Hiroshima invention of 2001. The owner of a small shop called Kisaku had eaten the dish in Sichuan, been struck by the combination of chilli heat and the numbing of sanshou pepper, and spent a long time working out a version that Japanese palates would take. It worked, and the city now has well over a hundred shops selling it.

The method matters. The noodles arrive over sauce rather than in soup and you mix them thirty or so times before eating — shops post the number on the wall — and at the end you add rice to what is left. A second shop, Kunimatsu, published its recipe for free, which is a large part of why the dish spread beyond the city. It is cheap, it is fast, and it is what Hiroshima office workers eat at lunch.