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Unusual combo of noodles, raw fish gaining popularity in Japan

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29 Jul 2022 08:07:18 GMT9
29 Jul 2022 08:07:18 GMT9

TOKYO: The conventionally unusual combination of noodles and raw fish is getting popular at noodle restaurants in Japan, with restaurant owners working hard to develop new dishes.

“Somen” noodle restaurant Awaya Iccho in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward uses Handa-brand somen, a specialty of Tokushima Prefecture in western Japan, which is thicker than ordinary somen.

“It’s rare to eat somen with seafood” in Tokushima, the owner of the restaurant said. However, somen noodles with fish, such as “zuke” marinated tuna and bonito and sea bream “yukhoe,” are now popular at the Tokyo restaurant.

“I’ve been thinking constantly about how to pair our proud Handa somen with fish” for over a decade since the opening of the restaurant, the seafood-loving owner said.

In August, the restaurant plans to release a new dish using a variety of seafood including tuna, squid, sea bream and salmon roe. It also plans to sell frozen products through mail order.

Serving dishes with fish is also beginning to become common among “soba” buckwheat noodle restaurants.

While soba noodles with herring are delicacies in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido and the western prefecture of Kyoto, few soba dishes with fish, except fish fried as tempura, have been served at restaurants in Tokyo.

“It was said that fish was not an ingredient that soba restaurants would handle,” said a worker at such a restaurant in the Japanese capital.

However, an increasing number of soba restaurants are starting to offer various dishes to shore up sales.

“Even in Tokyo, there have emerged recently restaurants offering cold soba with sashimi (sliced raw fish) as a topping,” the owner of Tsukiji Sarashina no Sato in the city’s Chuo Ward said.

The restaurant has so far released warm soba noodles with sashimi, using sea bream in spring and yellowtail in winter.

“We are now thinking of a new dish in which cold soba is served with sashimi from spring bonito or slightly boiled pike conger,” the owner said.

JIJI Press

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