A friend recommended this little soba place in the middle of an office area. There is always a long queue at lunch hour.
合盛（大）、￥１２５０。けんちん汁（並）、￥４００。
Aimori(soba+udon). Soba is thick and hard type, while udon is soft and springy type. Both are homemade and are very good. Eat with a light dipping sauce, and also spring onion, wasabi, shiso, grated radish and grated ginger. Kenchin-jiru with lots of root vegetables in it.
冷麦、￥１５００。
Very cooling Hiyamugi. Though I ended up ordering a small portion of hot Kenchin-jiru.
けんちんそば（並）、￥１１５０。五色そば、￥１０５０。
Kenchin-soba. Hot soba in Kenchin-jiru.
Five-colour soba. Hot soba with kamaboko, aubergine tempura, quail egg, shiitake mushroom and leek.
とろろ合い盛り、￥１３５０。
Tororo Aimori: soba and udon with grated yam and quail egg.
In general, I like the soba more than the udon, and menu that are served cold are better than the hot ones. The staff are very friendly and the atmosphere is warm.
Lunch menu(J): 1, 2.
志な乃(Shinano)
Add: 3-1-4 Higashi Nihonbashi, Chuo-ku
Tel: 03-3664-9795
月見山、￥５００。おむすび、￥１２０。
Tsukimi-yama: cold udon with raw egg and grated yamaimo. Nice sanuki udon with chewy and solid texture. In my first visit, I didn’t expect the tsuyu sauce for the udon to be that salty and I added too much without tasting it first….it was my fault but the waitress was kind enough to change the whole thing for me. Considering it was packed at lunch time, service was friendly!
Omusubi: rice ball cooked with the water used to boil the udon.
カレーうどん＋野菜天ぷら、￥７８５。
Curry udon(winter menu) and vegetable tempura.
釜たま＋かしわ天、￥６８０。肉うどん＋とりめし、￥９４５。
Kama-tama: hot udon with egg. Kashiwa-ten: chicken tempura.
Niku-udon: udon with pork. Tori-meshi: rice cooked with chicken. Niku-udon and Tori-meshi are Saturday-only menu.
かけ（大）、丸天、げそ天、￥７８５。
Kake: udon with hot soup. Maruten: Satsuma-age with squid in it. Geso-ten: octopus leg tempura.
ぶっかけうどん、えび天、￥７３０。釜揚げ、￥４７０。
Bukkake udon. Ebi-ten(on the side). The staff told me Ebi-ten is kamaboko with “whole shrimp” in it, but I didn’t expect it to mean “whole shrimp with shell and head and everything”. Not used to eating shrimp’s shell….
Kama-age: hot udon to eat with warm dipping sauce.
釜玉山、ごぼ天、￥７３０。 つけ、鯛ちく天（磯辺揚げ）、￥５７０。
Kama-tama-yama: Hot udon with raw egg and grated yamaimo - this is my favourite! Gobo-ten: I thought it was tempura of gobo(burdock root) but it was actually a cold kamaboko with gobo inside.
Tsuke: cold udon to eat with cold dipping sauce. Tai Chiku-ten: chikuwa tempura. The fish used is “Tai”.
As common for this kind of cheap udon places, the tempura are not made on order - only if you are lucky that your tempura will come hot. Once I tried asking the staff “Can you bring me whatever tempura that are just fried and still hot?” and she said she couldn’t do that. ^^;;; From what I have tried, the vegetable tempura was hot, octopus leg tempura and Tai chiku-ten were warm, but the chicken tempura was already cold and didn’t taste so good. There is always queue at lunch time and you will usually have to share the huge long tables with strangers.
Menu(J): 1, 2.
Also an English review here.
丸香
Add: 3-16-1 Ogawamachi, Kanda, Chiyoda-ku
大ごまそば、￥８５０。
Famous soba place established in 1884. The present building - dated from 1925 - is one of the historical architectures in Tokyo.
そばとろ、￥９００。天丼、￥１９００。
Soba toro(grated yam). Tendon(rice with prawn tempura).
かしわ南ばん、￥９５０。 力うどん、￥９５０。
Kashiwa(chicken) Nanban. Chikara(grilled mochi) udon.
にしんそば、￥１０００。鴨南ばん、￥１６００。
Nishin soba - soba with smoked sweet-flavoured herring(Kyoto origin). The fish tastes like the canned ones…not my cup of tea.
Kamo-nanban(Duck soba). Very good!
親子南ばん、￥１０００。 花巻、￥８５０。
Oyako(chicken and egg) Nanban. Hana-maki - soba with seaweed.
鴨せいろう、￥１６００。カレー南ばん、￥９５０。
Kamo(duck) Seiro. Curry Nanban.
鍋焼うどん、￥１０００。
Nabe-yaki udon - udon hotpot.
おかめとじ、￥１０００。 おかめ、￥９５０。
(Right)Okame soba : soba with Yuba, tamago-yaki, shiitake mushroom, kamaboko, bamboo shoot, seaweed, spinach.
(Left)Okame-toji soba: Okame soba with egg on top. Very good!
寄せ鍋うどん、￥１２００。 小田巻きむし、￥１１００。
Yosenabe Udon. Super delicious! So many ingredients(including my beloved mochi) in it.
Odamakimushi: chawanmushi with udon(just a little bit) at the bottom. Need to wait for 15mins but totally worth it.
かき揚天丼、￥１０００。 雛そば くさきり、￥１０００。
Kakiage-tendon. Not only kakiage, but also two prawn tempura. The prawns are smaller than the more expensive “Tendon”, but tasty enough.
Soba made with yomogi(limited period).
Not only soba, udon is good too. Tsuyu(soup) is delicious. Nothing I ordered was disappointing but yosenabe and okame-toji stand out the most. Portion is not big, so I always order L portion, which is an extra 100yen(the price quoted above are all for regular portion). The staff are very friendly but they don’t keep very good track of who ordered what. I always order L size but they never remember that - I have to remind them to charge me 100yen more each time. ^^;;
Look at the queue during New Year holiday…normally it is crowded and you may have to wait a bit and share a table during busy lunch hour, but I’ve never seen a queue like this outside a soba place…
Menu(J): 1, 2.
神田まつや
Add: 1-13, Sudacho, Kanda, Chiyoda-ku
Tel: 03-3251-1556
かきあげせいろ、￥７８０。
Kakiage(mixed tempura fritter) seiro. Very good! The udon is soft and chewy. Newly open, very clean and female-friendly inside.
雅楽
天ざる、１０００円。かしわおろしぶっかけ（温）、７４０円。
Very famous shop for Sanuki(讃岐) udon - thick, firm and chewy type from Kagawa Prefecture. I visited twice and had the cold zaru udon with tempura, and the hot soup udon with Kashiwa(chicken) tempura and grated radish. Both are very good but I prefer the cold udon which has a firmer texture. The shop is very tiny and always very crowded.
すみた
釜揚げうどん、３５０円。
Kamaage udon - hot udon straight from the cooking pot and accompanied by a dipping sauce(cold in this case and with a raw egg). The udon is homemade - very chewy and nice. 350yen is so cheap! This place is on the roof of Ikebukuro Seibu department store. I knew about the roof floor self-service eateries but never thought of trying. Then I saw a gourmet program on TV introducing this udon shop and a search in the internet showed that it is actually mentioned in a few udon-related web sites, so I went to try on the next day. But as I should have known, everybody saw that program….I just couldn’t be bothered to wait. One season later, either the media influence has faded or it is just too cold to eat outside, no queue! ^^;;
かるかや
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