Soba is at its best in autumn when the new-harvest buckwheat comes in, but I think the time you crave it most is the middle of summer. Just like ice-cold naengmyeon. I heard there’s a specialist shop serving cold soba that’s perfect for summer, so I went.
The entrance
It’s in Ginza 1-chome. I actually go around there a lot because La Bettola is nearby, but I never imagined there was a famous soba shop there too. Ginza, as expected. Sasuga was opened by a chef who trained at Bokunenjin, a famous soba shop in Shuzenji on the Izu Peninsula. Maybe that’s why it has the air of a top-class house.
It’s in the basement.
The place is a bit small, but the interior is neat. It has the right atmosphere for a light drink after work.
The house signature, hiyakake
Soba made with nothing but buckwheat flour is called juwari (100%) soba. Using only buckwheat gives you a rich soba flavor, but the dough is less sticky, so the noodles lack bite, and plenty of people don’t like it. On top of that it’s hard to make, so there aren’t many places that serve a juwari soba you can really be happy with.
The hiyakake here is juwari soba cut thin, briefly boiled, and served sitting in cold tsuyu broth. The noodles were thin and the portion didn’t look big, so I figured I’d finish it in no time, but the moment I took a bite the texture was spot on. How can noodles made only from buckwheat be this springy… In the end, to make it last, I kept picking up a strand or two, taking a sip of the cold broth, and picking up some more. Purely on flavor there may be better soba out there, but one bowl of hiyakake gave me all the refreshing coolness you desperately want in the summer heat.
Then it hit me that my regret at missing out on the sunmyeon (pure buckwheat noodles) at Woo Lae Oak on my last trip to Korea was gone. I think I can get by without sunmyeon for a while.
The place itself isn’t cheap. Rather than just grabbing a quick bowl of soba, it’s more of an izakaya style: order drinks and small plates and finish off with soba. If you only want to enjoy the soba, I think the best bet is to go around lunchtime and have a quick bowl. I hear the soba other than hiyakake is recommended too, so I’ll have to check that out next time.