New-harvest rice, known as shinmai, is the culinary star of autumn in Japan. But there's another grain that is just as eagerly anticipated at this time of year in many parts of the country: shinsoba, new-harvest buckwheat. There are two yearly crops of buckwheat in ...
Soba Dokoro Sasaki is worth a stopover if you're heading north into Kyoto's hills to catch the trees in their autumnal colors. It's billed as a soba restaurant, but there's plenty of udon and tempura dishes on the menu, too. Your best bet is ...
If eating noodles first thing in the morning doesn’t wake you up, the sound of other diners slurping certainly will. Soba buckwheat noodles and udon (chunky white wheat noodles) date back to the Nara (710-794) and Heian (794-1185) periods; ramen was introduced from China ...
Long before Western chain restaurants entered Japan, the nation was nourishing its population with food served fast. Soba noodles — cheap, nutritious, served quickly and slurped just as speedily (while standing) — are one of Japan's original fast foods and continue to rival burger ...
For most people, Shin-Osaka Station is a transit stop rather than a destination. That's understandable as there's not too much to stick around for. But if you're at a loss for food options, at least there's Atariya, a family-run soba restaurant that's a 10-minute ...
It takes considerable confidence to open a new restaurant at the hottest time of the year, when people's appetites are at their lowest ebb. To locate it down a narrow alley hidden from sight of Ginza's passing foot traffic seems even more foolhardy. But ...
One of the major attractions for foreign tourists in Japan is delicious washoku (traditional cuisine). But visitors may not know that one dish includes an ingredient that can cause life-threatening allergic reactions — soba. To promote safety, an association of soba shops in the city ...
There's a hobbit-in-the-Shire feeling in Muraki, a homely husband-and-wife run soba restaurant west of Kyoto city. The entrance is uncharacteristically marked not by traditional noren curtains but sliding wooden doors — the ki in Muraki is the Chinese character for tree or wood. The ...
The holidays are over and the year of the monkey is swinging into action. But it's still very much the season for ritual: You can tell from the flow of worshipers heading into the wooded precincts of Meiji Jingu Shrine. In the face of ...
It is not so unusual to find soba specialists that offer a good selection of other dishes. But Musashino does it the other way around. This small but fully fledged ryōriya (traditional restaurant) offers multicourse kaiseki meals, based around premium wagyu beef shabu-shabu hot ...
Arriving at Kamiyama could hardly be more atmospheric. The entrance is set into a black wooden wall along a quiet residential side street. Ankle-high traditional lamps illuminate a short flight of bamboo-fringed flagstones, leading to a sliding wooden door hidden behind a dark noren ...
It would be easy to breeze past the understated exterior of soba restaurant Takama without ever realizing what's inside, but that would be unfortunate — especially if you like soba. Michelin-starred Takama is located on the same street that leads into Tenjinbashisuji Shotengai, one ...
