Noodles ── Yakisoba
Sauce Yakisoba
Sauce Yakisoba — the Worcestershire-style fried noodles found nationwide
The most widely eaten form of yakisoba in Japan: Chinese-style noodles fried in a Worcestershire-style sauce. It's thought to have taken root in Taisho-era Tokyo as one strand of okonomiyaki culture, and most regional yakisoba variants build on this base.
Lineage
What it's made of
Steamed Chinese-style noodles are coated in a thick, Worcestershire-style sauce and fried with pork, cabbage, and bean sprouts. The sauce's sweet, savory aroma wraps around the whole dish, finished with nori flakes, pickled red ginger, and bonito flakes — a combination that has become the common template found nationwide.
How it's made
Many shops match a thinner sauce to thin noodles and a thicker one to thick noodles, adjusting viscosity to the noodle's width. It's also common to work the sauce in at several stages — an initial seasoning, a pass to loosen the noodles, and a final coating — and it's this layering that gives each shop its own particular flavor.
Why it took this shape
One account holds that as Chinese-style noodle makers multiplied around Asakusa from the late Meiji into the early Taisho era, a dish modeled on Chinese chao mian with Worcestershire sauce added became the prototype. It's said to have settled into Taisho-era Tokyo as a form of okonomiyaki, and as noodle culture spread nationwide after the war, this style took root as the standard version across the country by the 1950s.
Before you go
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- Tanabata and festival food stallsA guide to the somen said to be eaten on Tanabata, and to festival-stall staples like yakisoba, takoyaki, candy apples, and shaved ice.
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
Related lineage
- Shoyu YakisobaA style of yakisoba seasoned with soy sauce, a soy-based sauce, or Chinese soy sauce, commonly found on Chinese-restaurant menus. Some shops add oyster sauce for a Shanghai-style finish — a distinct strand from sauce yakisoba in both aroma and color.
- Shio YakisobaA style of yakisoba seasoned with salt or a salt-based sauce rather than the usual Worcestershire-style sauce. Offered at shops around the country as an alternative to sauce yakisoba, sometimes finished tart with lemon or vinegar, or made richer with butter.
Root style
- Itoigawa Black YakisobaA yakisoba created in Itoigawa, Niigata, by a local restaurateurs' group aiming to give the city a signature dish. Squid ink is worked into the Chinese-style noodles and local squid goes in as the topping, leaving the noodles themselves dyed black.
- SobameshiA dish said to have begun at an okonomiyaki shop in Kobe's Nagata ward: sauce yakisoba and rice, both chopped fine, fried together on the griddle. It's said to trace to a factory worker who asked the shop to warm the cold rice he'd brought along with his order of yakisoba.
- Soup YakisobaA dish enjoyed for more than fifty years at the Shiobara hot spring in Nasushiobara, Tochigi: freshly fried sauce yakisoba is put into a bowl and covered with a soy-based broth. It looks like ramen, but the texture in the mouth stays that of yakisoba.
- 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.