Noodles ── Yakisoba
Nakaminato Yakisoba
Nakaminato Yakisoba — Ibaraki's fishing-port yakisoba with hand-stretched steamed noodles
A yakisoba enjoyed for more than sixty years in Nakaminato, part of Hitachinaka city in Ibaraki. Its identity rests on a chewy, hand-stretched noodle steamed in a bamboo basket, a local soul food that has been entered at B-1 Grand Prix events.
- Origin: Ibaraki Hitachinaka (Nakaminato)
- About 110 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
The first thing you notice is the noodle's springy, chewy bite, with wheat's flavor spreading the more you chew. Called "tenobe seiro mushimen" — hand-stretched noodles steamed in a bamboo basket — it carries a width and texture distinct from ordinary steamed Chinese-style noodles. Combined with the sauce's savory depth, it gives the dish a bite unlike other yakisoba.
How it's made
Hand-stretched noodles are steamed in a bamboo basket, then fried together with sauce on a griddle or in a wok. The toppings — pork, cabbage — don't differ much from ordinary yakisoba, but sticking to this particular way of making the noodle themselves is said to be what keeps the local form intact.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that this yakisoba has been a local favorite in Nakaminato for more than sixty years. In a town that grew up as a fishing port, a noodle made with its own particular technique kept being used for yakisoba, and that is thought to be what gave the dish a texture unlike other regions' and let it take root as a local soul food.
Before You Go
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Dishes in the same style
- Abura ZomenPork and somen are fried together with a splash of broth, the oil and stock emulsifying into a silky coat on the noodles. Just how somen took root in wheat-free Amami isn't clear, but the dish is a fixture whenever people gather, not least for the August Dance festival.
- Aizu Curry YakisobaA dish from Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima: sauce yakisoba topped with curry roux. It's said to trace to a diner called Tommy Food, which began ladling curry over its yakisoba, catching on especially among young diners for its low price and filling size.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Ishinomaki YakisobaThe dish traces to a fried-noodle menu item at a Chinese-run diner in the city around 1931. After the war, a local noodle maker developed a method of steaming the noodles twice, which turns the raw dough brown before it is ever fried; the noodles are then pan-steamed in a seafood stock.
- Hoshi ImoSteamed sweet potato is sliced thin and dried in the sea wind — a technique said to have come from Shizuoka, now centered on Hitachinaka, which leads the country in output. The result is naturally sweet with a chewy, dense bite.
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.