January 28, 2010

Soba (Buckwheat Noodles) at Tabata-ya/田畑屋のそば

Last evening, my family went to Tabata-ya, a local buckwheat noodle restaurant here in the Shiozawa area of Minami Uonuma city. Reason: They hold a fair for four days in a row, offering all of their dishes at half the regular prices, except drinks, in the noon session for the first two days and in the evening session for the last two days. They call the fair "Naoe Kanetsugu Kansha (Thanks-Giving) Fair". Probably, the soba-ya (buckwheat noodle restaurant) has made a considerable profit by attracting many tourists from over all Japan, thanks to NHK's last period drama, Ten Chi Jin (Heaven, Earth, and Man), which featured Naoe Kanetsugu as the main character.
昨晩は、家族で田畑屋(南魚沼市の塩沢地域にある蕎麦屋さん)に行きました。その理由は、四日連続でフェアを行っていて、最初の二日は昼の部、後の二日は夜の部で、ドリンク以外はすべての料理が通常の価格の半分で提供しているからです。店では「直江兼続感謝フェア」と呼んでいました。多分、このそば屋は、先のNHKの大河ドラマ「天地人」のおかげで多くの観光客を日本中から呼び込み、かなり儲けたからだと思います。そのドラマで直江兼続が主人公として出ています。

My son, wife, and I ordered four servings of "hegi soba". Hegi soba is a specialty of the Uonuma region of Niigata prefecture. It contains funori (a type of seaseed) as a bonding agent, and is very sleek and resilient in texture, providing good nodogoshi ("throat-feel"), and greenish in color. Funori is also used to starch fabric. Shiozawa and surrounding areas are famous for their fabric production. Hegi means a wooden, rectangular tray in which to serve soba (buckwheat noodles), such as the one shown below. Another characteristic of hegi soba is that the noodles are made into manageable coils and arranged beautifully in a hegi, as shown below.
私、息子、妻は、へぎそばを四人前頼みました。へぎそばとは、新潟県の魚沼地域の特産品です。つなぎとして布海苔(ふのり)という海草が入っています。ツルツル、シコシコ、腰があり、喉越しが良く、色は緑っぽいです。布海苔は織物に糊付けするのにも使われます。塩沢およびその周辺地域は織物の生産で有名です。へぎとは、下に示すよう、そばを盛り付ける長方形の木製の枠のことです。へぎそばのもうひとつの特徴は、 下に示すよう、そばを食べやすい大きさに巻いて、へぎに美しく並べることです。

My son and I each ordered a plate of tempura, while my wife ordered a plate of vegetable tempura (cheaper than tempura, which includes kisu (a type of fish) and prawn) and my daughter ordered a chahan (fried rice) set.
私と息子は、それぞれ天ぷらを一皿頼みました。妻は野菜天ぷらを一皿(キスや海老が入った天ぷらより安い)を、娘はチャーハンセットを頼みました。

As I mentioned somewhere on eGullet, there are at least two types of tempura, soba-ya style tempura and tempura-ya style tempura. Soba-ya style tempura has more batter on it, and in some cases, more batter is sprinkled over a piece of tempura while it is being deep-fried, so that it gets more batter on the surface. This step is described as "hana wo sakaseru" (producing flowers).
eGulletのどこかで述べたように、天ぷらには少なくとも2種類あります。そば屋の天ぷらと天ぷら屋の天ぷらです。そば屋の天ぷらは衣が多く、場合によっては、天種(てんだね)を揚げている間に、さらに衣を落とし、表面に衣をつけることもあります。これは「花を咲かせる」と表現します。

The prawn was still raw. I'm not sure whether this was intentional or not.
海老はまだ生でした。故意かどうかは分かりません。

Later, the server brought this to the table. What's in this black object?
後で、ウェイトレスがこれを持って来ました。この黒い物体には何が?

Soba yu, which is simply hot water used to cook buckwheat noodles. It contains rutin, and is said healthy. At a soba-ya, it is common to have some soba yu together with leftover soba dipping sauce after you have had soba.
蕎麦湯です。そばを茹でるのに使ったお湯のことです。ルチンが含まれ、健康にいいと言われます。そば屋では、そばを食べ終わった後に、残りの麺つゆと一緒に蕎麦湯を飲むのが普通です。

You pour some soba yu into your bowl of dipping sauce, and drink it.
蕎麦湯を麺つゆの器に注ぎ、飲みます。

All my family love hegi soba!
家族全員、へぎそばが大好きです!

4 comments:

Rinshinomori said...

Wow, the raw shrimp tempura does not sound good. I think the contrast will be quite unnerving for people. Wonder what happened since the batter seems ok.

Hiroyuki said...

Rinshinnomori: You are quite right. I was a bit worried about getting sick from eating raw shrimp tempura. One possible reason is that the shrimp was still frozen when deep-fried.

mo hang said...

Hello Hiroyuki,

I am realy like your blog. Your post about Japanese food is real and simple to follow for me as the non-
Japanese cooking.

I am Vietnamese living in the US. I am visit Japan several times and still love to come back .

Thanks again and I hope to see more post from your blog.

Dan nguyen

Hiroyuki said...

mo hang: Thanks for your compliment!

It's hard to find recipes that are hard to follow in my blog (laugh)!

(I'm like a bad student who never ever follows a teacher's instructions. I have a (bad) habit of turning a complicated recipe into a simple one.)