I was in Japantown doing some grocery shopping on Sunday and had an enjoyable dinner at Soba Dining Sora. Sora is a soba focused restaurant from the Hinodeya Ramen group, and its right next to the Japantown Hinodeya Ramen in the Buchanan Mall across from the Peace Plaza.
There’s a line outside with stools to sit on, no Yelp wait list here. On Sunday evening there were a few people in line but I got in pretty quickly after a brief wait. The sign on the door says established 1885 - this is apparently when Hinodeya was established in Saitama, Japan.
Inside - there’s a drum that’s hit whenever theres new customers.
The menu, including a manga style guide on how to eat cold soba.
To drink, I had a Matcha Beer ($15), which is basically Asahi beer with matcha - which is prepared at the table - added to it. It’s an interesting concept - the matcha added some bitterness and matcha flavor. I’m glad I tried it but probably would opt for a more standard beer next time! It was basically the sum of its parts.
As an appetizer, I had the Seared Aigamo ($18), which was sliced smoked duck breast with mustard and soy sauce to dip in. This was delicious. The duck is smoked and was cooked to medium with the fat and skin attached. It was very flavorful and ducky, kind of like duck sashimi with the whole grain mustard standing in for the wasabi.
And I also had the Ten Zaru ($26) soba, which has cold soba noodles with a side of tempura. This was also delicious. Sora’s soba is 100% buckwheat, and the noodles were pleasantly chewy with a nice texture and earthy buckwheat flavor. The dipping sauce is shoyu based and has matcha, green onions, and wasabi on the side to add in to your taste. The tempura were nicely fried with a light batter. There was - from left to right - scallops, shrimp, tofu, tomato (which I don’t think I’ve had tempura style before), and green beans, all skewered. I dipped them in the soba sauce and ate them between bites of the noodles.
Tempura closeup.
Soba closeup.
After you’ve finished your soba, there was a little pitcher with soba cooking water to add to the remnants of your soba dipping sauce. The soba water was hot and a little thick and created a nice soup to sip on.
