Shop is located at right on Mitosirocho intersection, just south on Hongou street from Toei-Shinjuku line Ogawamachi station. Easy to spot since it is facing the main street.
Shop’s sign is rising sun with little touch of Showa era retro-style. There is a phrase on the white curtain with big letter “Yamagata Meat Soba”. The inside of shop has nice and warm atmosphere.
Here, I ordered their famous meat soba cold, not the usual Kakiage soba. It is one of the local cuisines in Yamagata, also called “Tsuttai Soba (Cold Soba)” in their native tongue.
■Soba: Blackish colored and little thick. Nice chewiness peculiar with soba noodle made in Yamagata. Once you have these noodles, the regular soba noodles made in Tokyo not enough.
■Soup: Cold soup. Dashi(※1) is made with mixture of chicken and sea kelps. Soy-sauce taste with rich taste. There is a thin layer of oil, making the soup powerful. Little sweet.
■Toppings: Chopped chickens cooked simply. Nice and chewy witch matches very well with the soup. They use adult chickens, not the cheap young ones.
Chicken toppings with chicken soup is more like for Ramen noodle or Okinawa soba, so it made me wonder little about this soba, but the black chewy soba noodle blew my worry away.
The chicken-based soba does not seem to match with soba noodles, but the wildness of the Yamagata soba noodle makes it possible. The power balance between the noodle and the soup is perfectly balanced, making you think this recipe is the correct recipe of the soba noodle. Terrifying power of Yamagata’s traditional food.
I once had the “Tsuttai Soba” in Yamagata about 20 years ago. I had bad hangover from the bottle of Debasakura, so I crawled myself to the soba noodle. The nice and healthy soup was nice to the weakened stomach. Their taste was just like the ones at Kahokuya, making me little nostalgic. The ones in the Yamagata had more thickness to the soup, but ones in here are nice and simple too. Makes you want to eat them repeatedly.
Not only the Yamagata soba, their Rice curry with Wagyu beef is popular. There are other Yamagata’s traditional foods, like cold Ramen noodle “Niku-Chuka” and Cutlet bowl made without eggs called “Kahoku Katsu-don”. All of them are loved by the people in Yamagata.
The shop becomes a pub after 5:00 P.M., and tell you the truth, I love their pub. I often bring my soba loving friends to the shop to have nice food and drinks. The menu changes drastically from their lunchtime menu, with tons of authentic foods. I love their “Corn Kakiage(※2)”. Deep-fried battered chunks of the corn is amazingly easy to eat. Making your drinks easy too.
■DATA
Tokyo-to Chiyoda-ku Kanda Nishiki-cho 1-2 Kanpo Kanda Nishiki-cho building 1F
3min walk from the Toei Shinjuku line Ogawamachi station
Open Hours: 10:30 – 23:00 (From 17:00 shop becomes a pub)
Closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and Holidays
Grade: A Three-Star Sobaya
(※1)Broth, usually made with Katsuobushi (Bonito flakes)
Katsuobushi is dried, fermented, and smoked skip jack tuna.
(※2)Deep-fried mixture of battered vegetable/seafood/meat.