Served hot or cold, Japanese soba noodles are winning fans in the US

Nation's Restaurant News, August 2, 1999 by Florence Fabricant

Add soba to the list of pastas that are in demand. Soba are Japanese buckwheat noodles, usually about 10 inches long and as thick as a toothpick. Because buckwheat flour is a key ingredient, the noodles are often beige, with an earthy flavor that can bethe perfect partner for mushrooms.

Soba also come flavored with yams; green tea; yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit; and occasionally beets. Green tea soba has a lovely, herbaceous flavor.

In Japan soba are quickly boiled. The classic technique for 12 ounces of noodles -- to serve four -- is to bring four quarts of water to a boil and add the noodles. When the water returns to a boil, add a cup of cold water. The procedure is repeated three more times, and by then the noodles are tender. Soba never is served al dente. The special cooking technique removes the foam from the surface of the water.

Boiled soba can be served hot or rinsed and drained to serve cold. It's a terrific summer refresher with a tangy dipping sauce made with broth and soy sauce. Typical condiments are wasabi, shredded non, ginger and scallions. In Japan hot or cold soba frequently are topped with tempura shrimp and vegetables.

Most of the time the soba being served in non-Japanese operations is used in a Pacific Rim context, with Japanese and other Asian ingredients. A perfect example is an operation in Pittsburgh, Soba Lounge, which opened in December 1996 and for the first few months had to explain the meaning of soba to its customers. "We still get questions every once in a while," says Jack Paladino, the manager. He says the name was the result of a brainstorming session, and it seemed to be appropriate for a Pacific Rim operation, albeit one that tends to emphasize Thai ingredients.

Soba is not a permanent fixture on the menu at Soba Lounge. "It goes on and off the menu as a special," Paladino says. "We also serve udon, thick Japanese wheat noodles, and lo mein, Chinese egg noodles." When the soba is served, it comes in a bowl, often in a broth, topped with fish like halibut or salmon and bolstered with Asian seasonings.

Elsewhere, imagination and creativity are running wild, as at Something Different in Indianapolis, where the noodles become a kind of sushi wrap. The dish is wasabi-crusted soba-noodle sushi with bok choy and ocean shiitake salad in a ginger-soy glaze.

Silks at the Stonehedge Inn in Tyngsboro, Mass., plays soba noodles off its tamarind caramel quail served with wild greens in a soy vinaigrette. At Duane Park in Manhattan, soba is used to make a crispy noodle cake to accompany a seared loin of bluefin tuna in a sesame-ginger glaze.

Cold soba becomes a salad in a miso-soy vinaigrette at Oceana in Manhattan, where it accompanies noriwrapped tuna. And at Tropica in Manhattan cold soba mingled with strips of stir-fried chicken is splashed with a sesame-honey dressing.

Soba accompanies a sashimi appetizer at East Hampton Point in East Hampton, N.Y. The sashimi of yellowfin tuna is plated with soba and Asian vegetables in a Chinese parsley essence. We're talking cilantro, but calling it Chinese parsley keeps it all Asian. Similarly, the raw tuna is called sashimi, not carpaccio, as it might be in another culinary context. Carpaccio with soba? That would be as confusing as sushi with capelli d'angelo.

Asian marinated lobster and tuna are served with soba noodles and wakame seaweed in an Asian vinaigrette at Moomba in Manhattan. Candela, also in Manhattan, pairs its ginger and sesame-glazed salmon with soba and adds a spicy fruit sauce.

And sometimes the term soba is not used at all. At Cafe Chino Pacific Rim in Houston, Pacific Rim chicken in spicy Hunan sauce comes with buckwheat noodles. Another dish features buckwheat noodles with grilled chicken and Asian greens. But the noodles are soba all the same.