FEATURE: Bangkok soba restaurant is Shizuoka man's dream

Asian Economic News, Oct 23, 2000

BANGKOK, Oct. 19 Kyodo

It was in November 1998 when Shoichiro Sugimura first became interested in the soba-noodle business.

Sugimura, 57, a manager of a security company in Ito, Shizuoka Prefecture in central Japan, was attending the ''Southeast Asia Forum'' in Yokohama when he learned about a program that encourages farmers in the Golden Triangle, a region of Southeast Asia, to grow buckwheat instead of opium poppies.

Sugimura's idea was to use that buckwheat to make handmade soba noodles, a quintessentially Japanese food, in Thailand for local consumption.

The Golden Triangle, which straddles Thailand, Myanmar and Laos, is one of the world's top sources of opium and heroin, which are made from locally grown poppies.

Part of Sugimura's goal has been achieved. Earlier this month, he opened Sarashina, a restaurant in Bangkok, the first in Asia outside of Japan offering handmade soba noodles.

He hired Lawan Wongwila, a Thai woman and skilled soba-noodle maker, to produce the noodles at the restaurant.

''There are as many as 300 Japanese restaurants in Bangkok where many Japanese live, but they serve only dried noodles,'' Sugimura says.

Sugimura hit upon the idea of producing soba noodles in Thailand after considering some other schemes involving overseas ventures.

Initially, he planned to export used Japanese-made motorcycles to China. But the country's high tariffs forced him to abandon the plan.

In February 1998, Sugimura made his first-ever trip to Bangkok, where he was impressed by the gentle and friendly attitude of the local people. Among them was Lawan, 32, whom he met during the trip.

Sugimura also received inspiration and advice for his current venture from Akio Ujihara, a professor emeritus at Shinshu University and expert in agriculture. Ujihara had been sent to Myanmar by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to teach local farmers how to replace their poppies with buckwheat.

Ujihara advised Sugimura that the first phase of his business plan should be to open a restaurant in Bangkok.

Even though some areas of Myanmar are producing buckwheat, Sugimura has to import all his buckwheat flour from Japan. The reason: The entire crop is bought up by the Japanese federation of noodle industry organizations.

Sugimura's first shipment arrived a mere two days before Sarashina's opening. The delay was due to lengthy procedures required for obtaining a license from Thai authorities, as the 500-kilogram shipment of the buckwheat flour was the first time for Thailand to receive such a large quantity of the product.

On Sarashina's first day of business, Lawan churned out 5 kg of soba noodles for about 40 customers, the maximum amount a single skilled soba maker can be expected to produce in a day.

Each serving of the noodles, served on a bamboo platter, is priced at 150 baht, about 370 yen.

Lawan's education in noodle making began early last year, after she secured a one-year apprenticeship at a restaurant in Ito, a seaside and hot-spring resort.

Numerous other restaurants in Japan had previously turned her down, saying a year was not long enough to master the technique of making the noodles.

''It was mortified to be told that such a small Thai person like me can never make soba noodles. So I hung on,'' says Lawan, who is 153 centimeters tall and weighs 42 kg.

She was referring to the fact that making the noodles by hand requires a great deal of physical strength and stamina.

Sugimura, meanwhile, is looking forward to the day when he will no longer have to rely on imported flour.

''We could make handmade noodles from buckwheat (in the Golden Triangle) substituted for poppies,'' he says.

The ambition of Sugimura and Lawan does not stop there. ''Our long-cherished dream is to also cultivate the buckwheat in Thailand and then export it back to Japan,'' he says.