Soba is what I consider a prime example of labor-intensive Japanese cooking. On the other hand, it is also something you can cut endless corners with. Many neighborhood soba shops use ready-made dried or fresh noodles. Even among shops making their own noodles, most leave it to machines. Perhaps fewer than 1割 of all shops actually make soba properly from scratch? Being particular about the flour (sometimes even owning fields and growing the buckwheat), using your whole body to knead, roll, and fold the dough according to that day’s conditions (hard physical work), cutting it (some shops use machines only for this step, but it completely changes the texture), resting it, and so on—doing it properly can take endless effort. And every day, too. Yet the profits are small. High-end restaurants charge thousands of yen because several people carry out these steps, which means labor costs. Meanwhile, independent shops that remain particular about their craft yet keep prices low often survive largely on the owner’s determination, passion, or personal enthusiasm. This shop is, of course, the latter. And in this location, too. Wonderful!

Visited for lunch. It is one street in from Gaien Nishi-dori, so the location is a little hard to find, but it is known locally and gets fairly busy at lunchtime. My usual routine on a hungover day is to come for some smooth, easy-to-eat soba. Simple zaru soba is on the menu too, but looking for something healthy and different, I tend to order sansai natto soba or kimchi jajang soba. You can have beer at lunchtime too, by the way. A place I would like to visit one evening.

It is not a bad restaurant, but the location is a little hard to find, so I am surprised it has lasted so long.

+2

I had nabe 😃 It was delicious‼️ The cold soba was fantastic too 😃⤴️⤴️

It felt a little intimidating to enter, but once I went in, it was not like that at all. And the soba was delicious.