Staff attitude was arrogant. Food was average; but tempuras were a bit disappointing...

Yeah! Otuska is a great place for food lovers.

This is a handmade soba restaurant located about a 5-minute walk from Otsuka Station, a little way in from Usemibashi Street, and this is a story of enjoying sake & soba on a holiday afternoon. I discovered it while walking to admire the cherry blossoms, and when I entered, the inside was somewhat spacious, seemingly able to accommodate about 30 people, and there was a desk for famous self-service Japanese sake and a sake refrigerator, a relaxing atmosphere. This time, first of all, I ordered beer and as snacks, pickled Chinese cabbage/fried octopus/wild vegetable tempura. The beer is Shirohonoka, satisfying to drink, the salty Chinese cabbage is homemade, the fried octopus is freshly fried and soft, the wild vegetables such as kogomi/bamboo shoots/fukinoto are freshly fried and crispy, very delicious. For the main soba, I ordered sakura shrimp kakiage soba. The freshly fried kakiage with plenty of sakura shrimp was fried crispy and light, delicious enough on its own, and satisfying enough with just salt. I asked for an egg to be added to the soba to make it tsukimi soba. The soba is handmade and quite chewy, I love it, the soup is a bit sweet and goes very well with the soba. The snacks and soba were very delicious, and looking at the lineup of Japanese sake, I was convinced that I must come again at night!! Next time I will come at night, thank you for the meal!!

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5-item set 1800 + Sake tasting set 700 + Oyama chicken and ganmo/radish stew 550 = 3050 yen ordered. ◆ Location... ☆☆☆ 5 minutes walk northwest from Otsuka Station. Located on the 1st floor of a 4-story apartment? facing a quiet street with apartments and shops, a little northwest from Usemibashi Street. ◆ Layout/Interior design... ☆☆☆ Inside the shop is somewhat spacious, 1 table for 6 on the right after entering, 6 tables for 4, 3 tables for 2, kitchen on the left. Interior is a standard Japanese design for a soba restaurant, with a relaxing Japanese atmosphere, and it was comfortable. ◆ Operation/Atmosphere... ☆☆☆ 1 man in the kitchen, 1 woman in the kitchen + customer service. Because it was early, there was only one group of middle-aged men. BGM is J-POP such as Southern All Stars. ◆ Food... ☆☆☆ Japanese sake in the sake tasting set is Ryuki from Gunma, Manrei from Saga, Akishika from Osaka. All are junmai-based and have a fruity taste and were delicious. The 5-item set also varies in appearance, and all are unique. Especially "Smoked Grilled Mackerel" is a snack-like dish that has a smoky flavor, different from the salt-grilled mackerel at lunch. Also, "Cheese pickled in kaeshi" is rich, and perhaps because it is pickled in "kaeshi" used for soba, Western-style cheese surprisingly went well with Japanese sake. Others are Japanese dishes that take time, such as firefly squid pickled in miso and simmered nagarami shellfish, I felt the chef's skill, not just a soba restaurant. Since the snack dishes were delicious, I ordered "Chicken and Radish Stew" expecting that skill. For the price, there were 3 large chunks of chicken, and plenty of radish/carrots, so I was happy because there was a sense of volume overall. The taste also permeated into each ingredient, leaving the chicken flavor while absorbing the soup taste. Usually, the drink included with the 5-item set is a limited-brewed beer called "Shirohonoka", but since it's after the sake tasting set, I changed it to shochu. It was a soba shochu called "Saku no Hana", but looking at the menu there is Japanese sake with the same name, I hoped whether the Japanese sake brewery makes shochu? so I ordered it straight without ice or hot water. When drinking, there is an aroma that passes from the mouth to the nose, and an elegant atmosphere different from ordinary shochu drifts. Usually, if you drink shochu straight, it will sting or something similar to sharp pain comes to the throat, but this drink is soft, and it is an elegant drink with gorgeousness. Since the set included "mori soba" or "kake soba", I chose "mori soba". I like hard noodles, but soba tends to become soft if it is made into "kake soba". It would be good if there was an arrangement like "hard noodles" like some ramen shops, but it is rare for soba shops to accept such orders until now. "Mori soba" was hard noodles as expected, and I could enjoy it deliciously with a thick, sharp soup, and standard condiments of wasabi and green onions. One dish to finish after eating, if it's ramen, I'm worried about calories, but if it's soba, I'm happy because I don't have to worry about that. ◆ Cost performance... ☆☆☆☆ Cost performance is quite good. It was my first time drinking in Otsuka, but such a reasonable and delicious shop is valuable. Next time I want to come with a friend.

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Wait!! Such a good shop... I definitely don't want to introduce it! All-you-can-drink Japanese sake 3500 yen. That's different from all-you-can-drink around there. Sashimi, 5-item sake snack set, 3 types of tempura, handmade soba, the level is too high. This is a level that can usually charge about 10,000 yen. I think this limit is in the red.

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