Noodles ── Soba
Izushi Soba
Small servings on white porcelain plates, eaten five at a time
A soba from Izushi, in Toyooka, Hyogo. It is said to trace back to a lord relocated from Ueda in Shinshu who brought a soba maker along, and is served in sets of five small plates made of local Izushi porcelain.
- Origin: Hyogo Toyooka (Izushi)
- About 440 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
The noodles trace their lineage to Shinshu-style soba and are laid out thin, a bite or so at a time, on small white porcelain plates. The plates are Izushi-yaki, made locally, and their whiteness is said to set off the buckwheat's color clearly. The broth runs on the sharp side and arrives plate-side rather than in a single dipping cup, so each diner adjusts the seasoning bite by bite.
How it's made
A single order comes as five small plates, usually with condiments like grated yam, egg, or daikon on the side. Finished plates aren't cleared away — they're stacked up in front of the diner, so how many you've eaten stays visibly on the table. The noodles go down easily, and it isn't unusual to see a stack climb well past the first five plates as regulars order more.
Why it took this shape
The story goes that in 1706 the Sengoku clan, relocated from soba-rich Ueda in Shinshu to Izushi, brought a soba maker along with them, since the new lord was fond of soba himself. Serving it on local Izushi-yaki porcelain took hold from the Meiji era on, leaving the region's history of a relocated clan sitting right there on the plate — a lord's own taste, still told as the textbook case of one town's food coming from one man's preference.
Before you go
- How to read a ticket machineShops that use a ticket machine (shokken-ki) often place their most popular items in a similar spot.
- Station food and ekiben (station bento)Where and when to find ekiben (station bento) before it sells out, etiquette for eating on board, how standing soba and udon stalls work, and where to find souvenirs sold inside the station.
- Foods to look for in summerA guide to foods often seen in Japan around summer — eel on the Day of the Ox, hiyashi chuka, somen, shaved ice, edamame with beer, and hamo — with rough pointers for finding them.
Dishes in the same style
- Baniku SobaFrom the Aso area of Kumamoto: hot soba topped with horse meat simmered sweet and salty. It's said to carry the history of a region where horse meat took root as a restorative food for the injured and ill.
- Cha SobaA kawari-soba made by kneading powdered green tea, often matcha, into the buckwheat dough. It takes on a faint green tint along with tea's own aroma. It is said to be one of the playful noodle variations devised during the Bunka-Bunsei era (1804–30), alongside yuzu-flavored soba.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Echizen Oroshi SobaA cold soba from Echizen, Fukui, topped with grated daikon and bonito flakes. It is said to originate with a soba maker a local lord brought from Kyoto to promote buckwheat as an emergency food crop.
- Wanko SobaA style from Hanamaki, Iwate, where bite-sized portions of soba are refilled bowl after bowl. It is said to derive from a lord being served small portions of soba, one bowlful at a time.
Also from Hyogo
- AkashiyakiOctopus folded into a batter of wheat flour, jin-ko starch, egg, and dashi, cooked and dipped in a warm broth — Akashi's own take on the round batter-and-octopus dish, distinguished from takoyaki by that broth in place of sauce.
- Ako saltA salt tied to Japan's earliest full-scale commercial saltfields, using the irihama tidal-field method perfected in the Edo period. Controlling seawater with channels and embankments let work continue regardless of the tide, and the method is said to have remained Japan's main salt-making approach for some 300 years.
- Awaji BeefPure Tajima-line cattle raised on Awaji Island, a brand producers founded in 1986 — selected for balance between lean and fat rather than marbling volume, with a small annual output.
- Banshu RamenA distinctly sweet soy broth, said to have taken root among the town's textile-mill workers.
- Banshu Tenobe SomenA document held at Ikaruga-ji temple in Taishi records the word 'saumen' in an entry dated 1418, the oldest known reference to somen in Hyogo. In the Edo period the Ryuno domain formally licensed and encouraged the trade, built on locally grown wheat, the clear Ibo River, and salt from Ako.
- Botan NabeA Tanba-Sasayama hot pot of wild boar and seasonal vegetables simmered in a broth of white and red miso, often finished with a dusting of ground Japanese pepper. Some restaurants are said to arrange the sliced boar meat like the petals of a peony.