Kokusai-dori Route

Beginning with the street staples

Kokusai-dori is a street of about 1.6 kilometres through the centre of Naha, and food gathers along both sides and in the Heiwa-dori and market lanes off it. Begin the day with Okinawa soba: thick wheat noodles, no buckwheat, in a clear bonito-and-pork broth topped with pork belly and fish cake. Then taco rice, spiced meat, lettuce and cheese over white rice, a plate born in a base town. On the move, a pork-egg rice ball, luncheon meat and sweet egg wrapped in nori, eaten one-handed. All cheap, the tastes Okinawans eat every day.

Sweets and the closing steak

Between bites, slip in something sweet. Sata andagi is a fried ball of flour, egg and sugar whose surface splits open; fresh from the oil it is hot, its plain sweetness lingering. Blue Seal ice cream began after the war for the US military and now offers island flavours like purple yam and salt chinsuko. And at night the street's signature is the "closing steak": after awamori, Okinawans eat seared lean beef instead of ramen, and steakhouses stay open late. Sweetness and meat, a street that changes face between day and night.

How to walk this route

Start at Kenchomae on the Yui Rail. Walk Kokusai-dori northeast toward Makishi Station and it becomes a single road sloping gently down. Line the stomach first at midday with Okinawa soba or taco rice, then pick at pork-egg rice balls and sata andagi as you walk. Midway, turn into the arcades of Heiwa-dori or the market lanes to walk dry under cover in rain. In the heat, cool off with Blue Seal ice cream. After dark, have a glass at an awamori shop and close at a steakhouse open into the night. Kokusai-dori is crowded with visitors and busy after dark, so allow time. Be ready to carry your rubbish. Prices and hours are a guide, so check at the door.