Zaru-soba is the simplest and the most popular of all Japanese noodles
Soba is the Japanese name of buckwheat, and it is also the name of soba flour noodle. Soba noodles are either served chilled with a dipping sauce (zaru-soba), or in hot broth as a noodle soup (kake-soba). Pictured above is zaru-soba and zaru refers to the dish that was made from bamboo to drain water. Commonly, twenty percent of wheat flour is added to buckwheat as it is very difficult to make soba dough only with buckwheat. Only artisans can make 100% buckwheat soba and soba fans prefer that. Soba is dipped in saba tsuyu (a dipping sauce that is made from fish broth and soy sauce). Since Edo period, it has been said that tsujin should not dip soba a lot into the sauce as the sauce would prevent one from enjoying the simple soba flavor. However, there has been a famous joke — that of a tsujin saying just before his death “Oh, I really wanted eat soba with lots of sauce dipping”.
