My first Soba noodle experience wasn’t much different from my first Ramen experience in Japan. I first had it in Japan and it wasn’t my choice in the first place to eat it. It was past lunchtime when I ducked through the noren (Japanese curtain), into a no-name hole-in-the-wall restaurant on a small alleyway…
I was standing in the middle of a souvenir store inside the Takasaki train station when a cup caught my attention. Mogu Cup was written on the label together with the Yen symbol followed by a few digits, but no other description except for the name of the crafter, Hokuto 59. The beautifully crafted…