Shuichi Nihira begins making soba at 6 a.m. every day. Nihira, who co-owns Sobakatsu with Yoshi Shinoda, can make 70 to 80 bowls of soba per day.
The cozy new soba restaurant is located at the corner of Laguna and Sutter Streets in San Francisco’s Japantown.
According to Nihira, Shinoda researched the best soba noodles in the United States.
Nihira told the Nichi Bei News that Shinoda has a neighbor in Osaka, Japan who has “a good soba place there.” Through contacts, Shinoda found a farming company in Maine, which sources the buckwheat flour locally. The restaurant uses Aurora Mills and Farm’s buckwheat flour made from seeds from Hokkaido, Nihira noted.
Nihira said in his teenage years he was a chef in Japan. Nihira is the first person in his family to own a restaurant.
The restaurant, which holds about nine customers at a time, was originally Kiss Seafood, Nihira said. He added that the Kiss Seafood owner and chef was Nihira’s friend. The seafood and sushi restaurant became another sushi eatery and another. It also became a sake bar before Sobakatsu.
Nihira and Shinoda were looking for a small space. “We want to (work) with a few people,” Nihira said.
Nihira contacted the space after seeing it needed to be filled.
He said the restaurant’s concept is “real Japan,” and Nihira wants to serve customers “real Japanese food.”
He added that he hopes his food is similar in quality to food in Japan.
The restaurant offers cold soba dishes: zaru soba with warabimochi, ten zaru, where one can choose from shrimp and vegetable tempura, vegetable kakiage, or scallops and vegetable kakiage, zaru soba surimi ten, or soba with deep fried fish cake. Hot soba options include kake soba and ten kake.
The restaurant uses gluten free shoyu, Nihira said.
People will have to wait for the restaurant to serve katsu, Nihira said. He is still looking for “good pork meat.”
Sobakatsu is located at 1700 Laguna St. (at Sutter Street) in San Francisco’s Japantown. They are open Mondays through Saturdays from noon to 7 p.m.
Greg Viloria contributed to the article.
Nichi Bei News staff writer Derek Tahara is a Yonsei or fourth-generation Japanese American born and raised in Sunnyvale, Calif. He earned his B.S. in Journalism at the University of Oregon. He is a lifelong fan of the Golden State Warriors and San Francisco Giants.
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