Nankinmachi (Kobe Chinatown)

Kobe's Chinatown is small. The main street runs about 270 metres between the eastern Choanmon gate and the western Seianmon, with a short cross street and a central square, and you can walk the whole thing in ten minutes. It is nothing like the scale of Yokohama's, and it works differently: this is a street food strip rather than a restaurant district.

Chinese merchants settled here after Kobe opened to foreign trade in 1868, close to the port and outside the designated foreign settlement. About a hundred businesses operate in the quarter today. The standard order is a butaman, a steamed pork bun, eaten standing up on the pavement, and the queue outside the oldest of the bun shops is a permanent feature that moves faster than it looks. After that: xiaolongbao, roast duck, fried chicken, tapioca drinks, sesame balls, and various things on sticks.

Prices have drifted upward with the tourist traffic and portions have not, so this is a place to graze rather than to eat a full meal. The sit-down restaurants around the edges are generally better value than the stalls in the middle.

The one time it becomes an event is Chinese New Year, when the square hosts lion and dragon dances, drums and a parade over several days. It is packed and worth it.

The location does most of the work. Motomachi Station is two minutes north, Meriken Park and the harbour are five minutes south, and the Kitano foreign residences are a fifteen-minute uphill walk, so the quarter slots into a Kobe day without any planning at all.