At university, lecturer suggests Japanese food (4)
I believe the answer is:
udon
'japanese food' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't tell whether it can be defined by this definition.
'at university lecturer' is the wordplay.
'at' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'university' becomes 'U' (abbreviation as in UMass).
'lecturer' becomes 'don' (don can mean an academic).
'u' next to 'don' is 'UDON'.
'suggests' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for udon that I've seen is " noodle, thick".)