My first stop fell through and I could not just head home like that, so I looked for somewhere to grab a simple bowl of soba, and a place called Karibe came up in the search.
The otoshi
Deep-fried shrimp heads. Pretty good with a drink.
Tamago
An omelette lightly seasoned with dashi has to be the standard drinking snack at a soba shop, right? The cooking here has really solid fundamentals, and when I looked into why, it turns out the place comes out of the Takeyabu lineage. For the same reason, the prices are on the higher side.
The kakiage set I ordered.
The soba is really tasty. In absolute terms the price is a bit steep, but if it tastes good, that is all that matters.. is this what they call middle-aged-guy thinking..
A kakiage packed with shrimp
It may look ordinary from the outside, but the inside is stuffed full of shrimp. A different style from Tempura Osaka in Shinbashi, and delicious in its own way.
Finishing off with sobayu
One bowl of tempura soba plus a beer comes to 3,000 yen, so it is not a cheap place, but considering how it healed the damage from earlier, I cannot really call it expensive either. Next time I will check whether Kyorakutei is open before I head to Kagurazaka.