A gleaming school of herring greeted me upon my arrival on U.S. shores yesterday. After landing from Tokyo, my first errand after dropping off my bags at home was a visit to my local fish monger (Monterey Fish Market). Winter is a cornucopia of goodies for seafood. Crabs, oysters, salmon roe and herring are just some of what I look forward to every winter.

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Sakura-ebi kakiage at Nunotsunesarashina in Tsukiji, my favorite soba spot when I lived in Tokyo.

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We drove a long way from Los Angeles proper to try the soba at Otafuku in Torrance. The shop donned no sign, except a neon “Open” sign that flashed in the window. The place was packed with hungry folks for lunch, lone salarymen sitting at the bar, and housewives chatting amongst one another at the tables in Japanese. Many of the customers were obviously regulars, so the waitresses were all a bit brusk, and I rather liked that.

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Since May, our beloved Ippuku of Berkeley has been serving teuchi (handmade) soba. Owner-chef Christian Geidemann recruited Koichi Ishii from Yamagata, a prefecture well-known for soba, to come and cook at Ippuku and start a soba program right here in the East Bay. We are SO LUCKY!

I know, I should have reported on this sooner. But rest assured that I have been able to try many different dishes, to show all the variations of soba that are on the menu.

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By Shizuka Wakashita

What do you drink when you go to a soba place? Beer? Sake? Shochu?

I thought sake but I was wrong.

I was converted into a sake lover about three years ago. Ever since then I almost always order sake when I go out for Japanese food, except for the occasions when I am with new faces and everyone yells freely, “Toriaezu beer de,” (let’s kick it off with some beer)  and I don’t feel like explaining why I like sake and all that.

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As 2011 draws to a close, I am not thinking about the Mayans. Rather, I am trying to decide what I will be eating over the weekend. PRIORITIES, people!

I’ll be working on Saturday evening (apocalypse be damned!), but I’ll have all the accouterments ready to ring in the new year with Johnny and a bowl of toshikoshi soba as soon as I get home.

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By the time you read this, Yoko and I will be in Niigata, Japan, a prefecture three hours north of Tokyo, on the west coast, the side of the Japan Sea. It’s also directly west of Fukushima City, home of the Daiichi Power Plant. We will be visiting a sake brewery, as well as harvesting rice. Yup.

Yoko and I just landed in Tokyo, where we’ll be spending the next three weeks with the OPENrestaurant crew for a project here called OPENharvest.

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PREFACE
Summer Slurp Series, Pt. 1: Nikumiso Udon
Summer Slurp Series, Pt. 2: Hiyashi Chuka (Cold Ramen)

The one (and only) thing that I miss about the disgustingly humid temperatures in Tokyo is the arrival of cold noodle dishes on menus everywhere. During the hot months of June through September, I would convince myself that I deserved a daily reward of a big bowl of cold noodles for surviving each hot day.

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Cold noodles are one of the best things about the summer. My favorite cold noodles are soba noodles. When it’s hot outside and steaming rice sounds like the last thing I want to do, I can always rely on soba noodles. But there have been more than a few times that I find that my tsuyu (soba dipping sauce) supply is bone dry or when my wallet is feeling the burn.

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1.) Chopsticks holder-thingy.

2.) Chopsticks to lay on #1.

3.) Cup for soba broth.

4.) Little container of housemade broth, to pour into #3.

5.) Dish of green onions and wasabi. To be added to #3 (only after #4 is poured in).

6.) Pink salt for Exhibit 7.

7.) Maitake tempura. How autumnal! To be dipped into #3 (after you’ve completed #4) OR sprinkled with #6.

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