Eating Soba in Japan

I went to Japan recently and totally discovered soba. In US, I had only had good soba once and that was in Seattle (Kamonegi - https://www.kamonegiseattle.com/). If you are in Seattle, its a must visit. Exceptional. Female chef making fresh soba in a small intimate environment.

Having started to prefer lighter ramen broths, soba suits me well. The broth is dashi with a shoyu tare so doesn’t have either the meat broth or fat components in ramen. Soba is a lighter noodle alternative to ramen and udon. The noodles are made of buckwheat so lower in calories. They are a little less chewy but still hold the broth well. Like ramen, you get cold or hot soba. Soba usually comes with a few more little dishes than ramen making it similar to a bento box. In Japan, we regularly got rice, broth, noodles, pickled vegetables and vegetable or shrimp tempura. The front page picture for this post included thinker noodles in warm broth and thinner noodles for dipping which were cold.

Soba often looks much more appealing and colourful than ramen. Here is another example of soba we ordered along with a matcha tea.