Dining doesn't get more democratic than in Yokohama's Chinatown, where visitors can spend big bucks on a single meal or fill up on steamed buns for a single coin. Here's a personal guide to some notable dishes; in the spirit of the neighborhood, there's a selection to suit all tastes and budgets.
Hand-cut noodles at Kyokaro
The most entertaining spot in Chinatown may be outside the picture window at Sichuan restaurant Kyokaroko. There, you can watch cooks use broad, flat blades to shave thin strips from large blocks of dough, letting them fall straight into cauldrons of boiling water. This style of hand-cut noodle — known in Japanese as tōshō-men and in Chinese as dao xiao mian — is the starring element in one of the neighborhood's most celebrated dishes: Kyokaro's sweat-inducing spicy dan dan mian (tantan men in Japanese), which sells for just ¥900.