Feb 13, 2025 22:00:00

I ate soba noodles topped with giant geso tempura and red ginger tempura at 'Ichiyoshi Soba'

Everyone knows that tempura and soba go well together, such as shrimp tempura soba and kakiage soba. At Ichiyoshi Soba, a 24-hour soba restaurant in Nippori, Tokyo, you can choose from 30 types of tempura, and their specialty, the jumbo octopus tempura, is popular for its cheap price and huge size. I went to Ichiyoshi Soba to enjoy the tempura and soba to my heart's content.

Ichiyu Soba

http://ichiyoshisoba.com/

Ichiyu Soba is located just a few minutes walk from Nippori Station. It is open 24 hours a day, except for the New Year period from January 1st to 4th and the Obon period from August 13th to 15th.

Arrived at Ichiyu soba.

When I visited around 1:30pm on a Saturday, there was a line of more than 15 people.

The turnover is quite fast, and the line keeps moving forward. There is a menu posted outside the store, so you can decide what to order while you are waiting in line. This time, I decided to order 'Large serving of warm thick soba noodles (560 yen including tax),' 'Jumbo tentacle tempura (230 yen including tax),' and 'Pickled ginger tempura (130 yen including tax).'

After starting to queue, we arrived at the entrance of the restaurant 12 minutes later. The system is that you order verbally at the end of the line, pay, receive your soba and find a seat by yourself.

There was a large amount of tempura on the counter between the cooking area and the eating area. The seats were mostly stand-up style, but there were two seats where you could sit and eat. However, the system was 'if a seat becomes available, you can slip in there', so it was a matter of luck whether you could get a seat or not.

Jumbo tentacle tempura are piled up on the counter.

So I ordered 'Large serving of warm thick soba noodles', 'Jumbo tentacle tempura' and 'Red ginger tempura' and moved to my seat. The soba was covered with tempura and green onions. The soba was served about one minute after ordering. The total time from lining up to starting to eat the soba was about 19 minutes.

Jumbo Tentacles are made by cutting the tentacles into chunks and frying them together like kakiage.

The batter is crispy and the tentacles are chewy. The taste is a classic tentacle tempura taste, and you can enjoy the great combination of oil, batter, and tentacles. Another nice feature is that you can break it into bite-sized pieces with chopsticks.

Pickled ginger tempura has a mild flavor because the sharp kick of pickled ginger is enveloped in batter and oil.

The thick soba noodles had a weak buckwheat aroma, and were more for mixing with the broth rather than enjoying the taste of the soba itself. They were chewy and you would naturally chew them a lot, so they made you feel full easily.