Ramen's stir-fried cousin, yakisoba, is still relatively unknown outside of Japan, but it's one of the most popular everyday dishes here.

Unlike ramen, which is rarely made from scratch at home because of the complexity of its soup, yakisoba is quite easy to whip up for a quick lunch. It's also a very popular food stall snack, especially during summer matsuri (festivals), and instant yakisoba is widely available. You can even get yakisoba bread — soft rolls stuffed with yakisoba. (Confusingly, the name "yakisoba" is actually applied to several different dishes, such as kata-yakisoba, made with crispy deep-fried noodles. Various stir-fried noodle dishes from around Asia are also called yakisoba, such as "Thai yakisoba" for pad thai. Here, I'll be talking about the soft stir-fried noodle dish.)

Although the word yakisoba means "fried soba noodles," soba (buckwheat) is not used at all. Like ramen, yakisoba uses a type of noodle that is Chinese in origin and made with wheat flour and an alkaline water called kansui (jian shui in Chinese), or lye water. The alkaline gives the noodles a yellow color and a unique chewy, springy and smooth texture. The noodles are steamed or boiled before stir-frying. You can also buy pre-steamed noodles meant for yakisoba, which often come with packets of sauce.