Minohisa Soba

Tateyama City on the Boso Peninsula has a bounty of seafood and locally grown vegetables and fruits. At Tateyama Port, there are many reasonably-priced restaurants and cafes that cater to road trippers and beachgoers. On a hot summer day, I didn’t have the appetite for a big meal and wanted something refreshing and cool. Minohisa, a locally popular soba noodle shop, fits the bill.

Minohisa, located just west of Nagisa no Eki road station, is easy to find with its large green awning. This restaurant’s cuisine contrasts with the local fare as it specializes in soba produced in west Japan and serves some dishes that are common in the Kansai and Kinki regions of Japan. The chef is particular about their kamo seiro and kamo nanban, chilled and hot duck soup with soba noodles. The duck is sourced from a farm that raises ducks on premium feed and bamboo charcoal water. The result is succulent duck with leeks in tsuyu broth to accompany the soba.

For my lunch, to beat the summer heat, I opted for chilled soba with sansai tororo gomoku soba. I’ve had variations on this dish before, but this one stood out for the lightly pickled mountain vegetables with their slightly crispy texture, the freshly ground tororo made with mountain yam, and the dish finished with tenkasu for crunch. The soba surprised me as it was nearly white rather than the typical brown. This variety is sarashina soba made with the inside of the buckwheat seed with a ratio of 7 to 3 buckwheat and wheat flour. The noodles have an appealing chewy texture and a slightly nutty flavor.

For diners who need stamina to climb the mountaintop Tateyama Castle nearby, the restaurant also serves a Kansai dish ojiya udon, a hearty combination of rice and udon noodles served in broth and topped with vegetables and fish.