Last Saturday I went to a soba restaurant that was about 5km away from where I live. I think soba, or blackwheat noodle is often had by the Japanese people, and when it is in the winter people have it to warm themselves. And we never fail to have soba on New Year's eve, which is called "Toshikoshi soba" or year-crossing noodles.
Every soba restaurant has this kind of Japanese-styled interior. When it comes to relaxing, we tend to prefer the Japanese style over the Western one. Personally when I want to have a party-like meal, I usually go to a western restaurant which for example serves pizza.
At some soba restaurants we see joists as huge as these. It was reported on TV that old wood is now recycled to be used as joists for people who want to refurbish their houses the Japanese way.
This is "Yasai Tempura Soba". "Yasai" means vegetable. This set cost as little as 9.5 us dollars.
Basically, soba is supposed to be not too soft nor hard. And noodles should have "koshi", which is similar to the meaning of chewiness. And we put slices of green onion atop soba. Some people put in Shichimi, which I referred to in this Ramen posting.
And these are tempuras. From left to right: sweet potato, green pepper, and egg plant. These tempuras were really crispy and had a bit of hot vegetable juice inside. Any soba restaurant should be good at making both soba and tempuras.
I tend to introduce food served at a restaurant, but we often have soba also at home for lunch. While udon tastes like pasta, soba has a distinctive taste since it is made from buckwheat flour.
