On every street or at every station in Tokyo, you will certainly come across a couple of Soba (buckwheat noodles) shops. Some are very traditional with sophisticated interiors serving soba & sake for posh regulars, whereas most others are tiny standing-only stalls serving simple soba bowls to businesspeople or students on tight budgets.
Looking back hundreds of years, Soba was a popular meal among residents in Edo (the former name of Tokyo) city. Back then, a portable kitchen tool for soba was invented equipped with a cupboard for ingredients on one side and a pot for boiling noodles on the other. The tool was so handy that a shopkeeper could carry it in town and start his business anywhere on the street.
As time went by, the tool settled in a busy street, turning itself into a standing-only stall but keeping its advantage of the quickest lunch service in any restaurant.
The most reasonable lunch place has continued its service until now, but very recently, it evolved to the trendiest foodie among Tokyo restaurants.
In the Otemachi business district, HOSHINOYA luxury hotel is surrounded by walls all slated with black stones. They are so sleek that you feel like being inside a black mirror. At around 10:40am, businesspeople turn up out of nowhere and start to form a queue at one corner of the wall. Within ten minutes, the queue is extended meters long, accommodating dozens of people.
Exactly at 11am, a part of the wall opens a crack, where you finally notice a really tiny plate embedded on the wall, on which is carved "MINATOYA 2".
Here is the legendary soba stall which pioneered a new era in Japanese noodle cuisine.
Two identical ticketing machines are hidden behind a pillar. With a single button taking only a thousand-yen bill, it sells only one dish: "Shredded pork on cold soba".
Sounds normal, but the feature actually broke tradition.
Here is what's special about this bowl.
First, noodles are thick, bold and dark. Traditionally, fine & white noodles are favoured by locals.
Second, chili oil is poured in dipping sauce. For a long time, we have been convinced that wasabi is the only spice to go with soba.
Third, Nori seaweed and green onion are scattered on the noodles. Originally, just a pinch of them floated on a dipping sauce.
As such, in contrast to the traditional style, which is neat, beautiful and sophisticated, the bowl invented by this shop is wild and energetic enough to strike a huge impact on Japanese cuisine.
The soba revolution started in the Shimbashi business district in 2002. The original shop "Minatoya", with a large stone table in the centre of a small hall, was always packed with businesspeople standing and slurping a bowl or forming a long queue waiting for their turns. The shop was closed and relocated to Otemachi as "Minatoya 2" in 2019, it kept its interior; a large stone table for standing-only guests, and its serving style; a single bowl on the menu.
Nowadays, the wild style bowl is adopted by many soba shops, creating a certain category as a Japanese cuisine. Still, the legendary shop in Otemachi has been attracting more Tokyoites much in love with soba noodles.
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