A note on the words: tanuki soba is buckwheat noodles topped with tenkasu (crisp tempura batter flakes), served chilled here with a little broth poured over the noodles with wakame seaweed and scallions. Kitsune soba is soba topped with sweet-simmered aburaage fried tofu, and shungiku tempura is a deep-fried fritter of aromatic garland chrysanthemum greens. Tenkasu, also called agedama, are crunchy bits of fried batter left from making tempura, and wasabi is pungent grated Japanese horseradish stirred into chilled noodle broth.
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Yoshi Soba Akasaka ten on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. Because I had been eating nothing but onigiri for a while, I have been making the rounds of morning soba shops again — this time at “Yoshi Soba”. Right in front of TBS, the location is unbeatable, but recently a “Fuji Soba” opened right under its nose! How will it be? Did the flavor change to counter the new shop? I went to check.
There is a ticket machine at the shop entrance outside, and another diagonally across inside the shop. Having two keeps the turnaround fast!
Right out front are Akasaka Sacas and the building housing Hakuhodo. It is truly right in front, so you can eat your soba while watching the crowds heading to work.
Special Yoshi Soba — 610 yen
Shungiku tempura — 600 yen
Tanuki — 460 yen
Kitsune — 460 yen
The soba menu hasn’t changed.
Yoshi Soba also accepts transit IC card payments. Well, mornings are busy, so I can certainly understand wanting to tap and go smartly without putting in cash. The order, naturally: morning chilled tanuki soba.
After handing over the ticket, I waited right in front of the counter for a moment. It comes out right away. Fast.
Once again, Yoshi Soba’s chilled tanuki soba.
I wish there were a little more wasabi. Good amount of wakame seaweed, just a bit of scallion. Taking a bite of the soba — yeah, pretty good for a chain shop. It is nice that it isn’t soggy. However, there is very little sauce. Even normally it is fairly low in salt, and since it is poured in only a very thin layer, it feels overwhelmingly lacking for the quantity of noodles. The agedama (crisp tempura bits) are good. These genuine tenkasu have complex shapes, so they are crisp and airy. They catch the sauce nicely too.
If it had two to three times more sauce and wasabi, it would be perfect. The tanuki soba at Tateshina has an enormous amount of broth! I wouldn’t mind at all if they raised the price, so I wish they would offer extra sauce and extra wasabi! Or rather, I get the feeling they might just do it if you ask, ha.
And so, this time it was Yoshi Soba. The price of chilled tanuki soba is 30 yen cheaper than Fuji Soba. It is tasty, but the broth still nags at me. If that were improved, they take transit IC cards, and location-wise it is quite convenient for dropping by every day. Still, asking “extra sauce, extra wasabi, please” is embarrassing and I’d hate to do it, ha.
Yoshi Soba Akasaka ten (Stand-up soba / Akasaka Station, Tameike-sanno Station, Akasaka-mitsuke Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.3
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
