A note on the words: soba are buckwheat noodles; tsuke style means the noodles and broth come separately, for dipping; kakuni is slow-braised pork belly; kamo nanban is the classic duck-and-spring-onion bowl; Jiro refers to Ramen Jiro, a Tokyo chain whose style means a mountain of bean sprouts and cabbage, raw garlic, back fat and very heavy seasoning — ordering it is a small ritual of its own; dashi is the stock of kelp and dried fish that underpins Japanese cooking. Prices are as of this writing (August 2026).
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BASO on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
I want something good to eat today too! This is Hangover Meshi.
I heard there was a soba shop everyone has been talking about lately, so off to Harajuku! The shop is called “BASO”.
From the photographs, the famous thing seems to be the dipping soba. Noodles laid out neatly in a stone vessel — very good! It ought to photograph well too, and I wanted to go, so I waited for a day when I had time and went.
I arrived prepared to queue for however long it took, and there were already about eight people ahead of me.
You buy your ticket first, then join the queue.
Some people were trying to queue first and take turns going to buy the ticket…
…and were simply sent to the back of the queue on the timestamp printed on the ticket, so be warned.
Salted duck tsuke SOBA with extra meat — 1,530 yen
Kamo nanban SOBA — 1,290 yen
Buta kakuni SOBA — 1,380 yen
Mildly spicy tsuke SOBA — 980 yen
Kakuni no tsuke SOBA — 1,280 yen
And here is where I made a grievous error.
What I bought was the “buta kakuni SOBA”.
I had entirely pictured braised pork belly sitting in the dipping broth of a cold soba,
but that is the “kakuni no tsuke SOBA”!
Completely unaware of my mistake, I stood there in the queue…
When my turn came, up to the first floor above! They hand you a number tag. Number 55!
Told to take any free seat, down I sat.
Of course, having nothing in particular to do afterwards, I ordered a beer.
Beer in the daytime is delicious!
The condiments look like this.
And then, calling out for number 55, the staff brought me this.
That is Jiro.
What? Hang on. Did I not order the cold one? What?
Confused, I looked back at the photographs on the ticket machine and realised, yes, I should have ordered the kakuni no tsuke SOBA.
So the buta kakuni SOBA is a Jiro-style bowl? How is a beginner supposed to know that!
Carefully piled with back fat and garlic, too.
And I could feel the people around me looking over as if to say “…really?”
Nothing for it but to eat the lot with the air of a regular so seasoned he has grown bored of the dipping soba…!
I did want the tsuke SOBA for my first visit. Resigned, I started eating — and it is entirely Jiro. Except that these really are soba noodles. Slightly healthy, perhaps?
On top of the noodles, a sturdy, meltingly soft slab of braised pork, holding its shape and looking marvellous.
Extra vegetables — bean sprouts and cabbage — a coarse garlic paste, and BASO’s own blended flavoured oil over the top. You have to fight your way through that jungle before you reach the noodles at all. “Fair enough — this really is buta kakuni soba.”
The soba itself is supple with a firm, clean bite, sliding smoothly down the throat. They are made thick, so there is a chewiness to them as well, and having the heavy Jiro-style broth and toppings arrive in the mouth at the same time as the fragrance and slip of soba makes no sense at all.
It is Jiro-style, and yet the broth is properly built on dashi — a strange sensation.
It must be healthier than ordinary Jiro, surely.
Once the heavy-duty seasoning, the fat of the braised pork and the garlic mix into that broth, it no longer feels like eating soba at all. But yes — it is good. It really is good.
So: while the fashionable crowd beside me ate their tsuke SOBA saying how good it looked, I ate a bowl of Jiro trailing the scent of garlic — a lunch that toughened the spirit somewhat. That said, this buta kakuni SOBA is very good indeed, and I would like people to order it deliberately! There are a great many bean sprouts, so it is filling too. I think it is a fine thing.
Also, shop: please write somewhere that the buta kakuni SOBA is a Jiro-style bowl!
Because everyone is going to be surprised!!!!!
BASO (soba / Meiji-jingumae Station, Harajuku Station, Omotesando Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
