Japan is a land that perfects each native dish with restaurants entirely devoted to one item, from comforting okonomiyaki to delicately fried tempura. And often at a handful of seats in a tiny space. Enter Sobakatsu, a closet-sized restaurant with a max of 11 seats, no reservations and a sole focus on cold and hot soba, Japan’s silky, thin buckwheat noodles that are friendly to all gluten-free-ers.
As one who has long preferred more nuanced, delicate soba to ubiquitous ramen noodles, this was good news, indeed. Quietly opening late July 2024 on a corner in San Francisco’s Japantown, the first Japantown in North America, lines have run around the block since the beginning.
Certainly peppered with savvy Japanese locals who know a “real deal” soba spot has hit their neighborhood, but also with foodies lining up for the goodness. Even major restaurant critic friends from LA are already asking me about this only 2-month-old, miniscule gem.
So I’ll tell you: it’s legit. But funny enough, what I’m dreaming of returning for is beyond merely the soba noodles. First-time owners Shuichi Nihira and Yoshihiro Shinoda met working in Japantown restaurants while dreaming of opening a fresh buckwheat soba place amid the over-abundance of ramen houses.
Even on a Tuesday, I arrived with a friend thirty minutes before noon opening hour, waited in line and still didn’t make the first seating, waiting till about 12:45pm before we were able to place our order at the counter and snag two seats. Seventeen years into this professionally and 25 years of serious research, I don’t wait.
I hate lines and do not have time for them, especially when visiting 3–6 restaurants, bars and food stops a day, typical for me as I travel half of month researching around the world. Nor does waiting work on a tight deadline workday back in SF when I have to plan my meals weeks ahead to make sure I get to most new openings and return visits in my tight couple weeks home.
Sadly, this means I’ll likely not get back to Sobakatsu for ages, though I’m truly glad it’s here and will recommend it to any Japanese food and noodle lover. Nihira and Shinoda cook feverishly behind the little counter, turning out tray after tray of steaming and cold bowls of soba served on lacquered trays, while also frying up tempura kakiage, inari sushi, fish cakes and rare warabimochi.
While ramen abounds and even udon is plentiful in the Bay Area, in the state with the largest Japanese population in North America, soba is tough to come by. Tsukemen, a buckwheat Japanese ramen noodle dish, is more plentiful but historically we have to go to Soba Ichi in Oakland and Leichi in Santa Clara for fresh soba.
Sobakatsu does it right, using stone-milled organic buckwheat flour from Maine’s Aurora Mills and Farm, from seed stock imported from Japan. They properly serve both hot (kake) and cold (zaru) soba noodles with choice of sides, whether shrimp and vegetable tempura, mixed vegetable kakiage or scallop and vegetable kakiage tempura, a hot soba with buta kakuni (soy-braised pork belly) or soba with surimiten (sweet fried bean).
Cold soba has long been my favorite in Japan and beyond. Dip and swish your cool soba noodles in a light, savory dipping sauce, where the buckwheat flavor shines more clearly than when hot, perfected with a smattering of green onion and wasabi added to the sauce. The broth stars in the hot soba as the noodles soak up quickly and get soft.
Nutty, dusty warabimochi is an ideal, slightly sweet accompaniment. Likewise, so is inari sushi (aka inarizushi), fried tofu skin packed with vinegar-touched rice. It’s sweet, savory, eaten by hand. All of it is filling. But the tempura is what I’m still thinking about. Lightly-battered so as to almost dissolve in the mouth with gentle crispy contrast, veggie kakiage delights, from squash to spring peas. But it’s the pitch-perfect shrimp I’m craving: plump, juicy perfection in a thin but intentional layer of batter.
There is nothing but water to drink, making me wish I could sneak in a good bottle from True Sake to pair with. But I sure didn’t leave unsatiated, though it’s a quick, “no frills” meal. I felt whisked away to Japan where quality and obsession reign, where mastering one thing and doing it with excellence is the sole focus, much to the benefit of my palate. Sobakatsu is a minute, wee little restaurant, but it’s bona fide… despite the difficulty of snagging a seat.
// 1700 Laguna Street, www.sfjapantown.org/directory-jpndirectory/listing/sobakatsu
Virginia Miller is a San Francisco-based food & drink writer.
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