Aoyama Kawakami-an: Sobaya that lets its hair down at night
Arrive at Aoyama Kawakami-an at midday and you'll find a typical upmarket noodle shop. But return after nightfall and it has a very different feel.
Aozora Blue: Hand-made udon with a soba inflection
At Aozora Blue, chef Hirofumi Matsui draws on his soba-making experiences to offer an exquisite, handmade udon noodle in an elevated setting.
Shuichi Kotani: Taking soba noodles worldwide
From working at McDonald's in Himeji to making noodles for Japanese restaurants in America, Shuichi Kotani has always looked for and taken opportunities.
High school soba champ shows she's a cut above the rest
Rurika Koike, 18, is a one-of-a-kind champion. She won the all-Japan high school tournament this summer for excellence in the art of making soba. In the annual championship, 154 students from 32 schools from northern to southwestern Japan don caps and white aprons to test ...
Using their noodles: Fukui school's soba club hopes to roll to national title
Noodle club members from a high school in the city of Fukui are hurriedly honing their soba-making skills to prepare themselves for the national high school championship in Tokyo later this month. The noodle club, a rarity even in noodle-crazed Japan, was launched two years ...
Sobagami: Soba noodles served with quiet formality
Sobagami is a soba noodle specialist — this you can guess from the name — but it is also an offshoot of the very genteel Ginza Kamiya, a high-end kappō that takes pride in doing things the right way.
A decade on, Shonan surfer is still making waves in the world of soba
Fate intervened when the heavens opened, guiding Ippei Hayashimoto on his path to mastery in the art of pure buckwheat noodles.
Imose: An oasis where the soba's worth the wait
Imose, a genteel soba restaurant, boasts a few soba dishes you won't come across too often.
Matsushita: Polishing the tradition of fine soba
After living in France for nearly a decade, Toru Matsushita returned to his hometown of Osaka and took up where he left off in the French capital. Before long he was settled back into preparing and serving soba. On the surface it was a circuitous ...
Inakatei: Century-old noodle shop maintains its proud traditions
Inakatei does not look its age. First opened in 1910, or Meiji 43, it's been serving noodles for more than a century. A makeover a few years back gave it a modern Japanese touch: wood finishing and furnishings abound, while the communal table near ...
'Sobagaki': An ancient soba recipe
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 ...
