Sobakoh

So let's be real here -- I have many Japanese (and Japanese culture-phile) friends who know their soba and take it very seriously. If you put a bowl of handmade soba and a bowl of packaged cheapo soba in front of me, I hope that I'd be able to tell the difference. But I don't know that I could; I haven't had enough experience with soba to call myself an authority by any means.

But still, it either tastes good to me or it doesn't, right? So you can take my layman's review with a grain of salt (or a drop of shoyu, I guess). Last night, three friends and I went to Sobakoh, the new soba place in the East Village. At 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night, we were expecting a long wait, but were pleasantly surprised that we got a nice roomy fourtop in the back of the low capacity but very roomy restaurant. I liked what I saw -- dark veneer tables offset by white wood in the front, and bright but not blinding incandescent light fixtures overhead, so I could see my food and my good-looking companions. To those places with little to no light, I ask, what are you trying to hide? Or what do you think I'm trying to hide? I like to be visually stimulated by my food, visually stimulated by my dining partners. And sometimes I like to read when I eat. So let there be light, dammit!

I digress. We go over the perfect-length, uncomplicated menus together as we sip what I believe is sobacha, a sweet-edged, mild cereal tea made with roasted soba bits. How could we resist the specials? Last night's list included a small bowl of perfectly cooked asparagus and a mild white sesame sauce, which was lovely and plain; a lovely, refreshing salad made with translucent ribbons of shaved daikon, with various crunchy green veggies, a touch of shaved bonito, and a soy/yuzu dressing; and a super silky crab chawan mushi that I could have eaten 5 of.

From the regular menu, we shared the miso-marinated, grilled duck breast, which came sliced and fanned on the plate with a blob of freshly grated, olive colored wasabi, and a small pile of completely unnecessary, disgusting little sprouts. But the duck was really interesting, each reddish piece with a wide toupee of fat -- as Chris said, "It's like duck bacon! I love when bacon can be made from something other than the pig." And unlike D'Artagnan's duck bacon, it had a thickness that really gave it a lovely bacon lardon texture.

Finally, our generous bowls of hot soba came out, along with a little shichimi togarashi dispenser. Sobakoh hand makes their buckwheat noodles, and the beautiful noodles have the slightest variations in uniformity to indicate it. The broth really sings, with a little soy sweetness and a slight acid finish -- it has the perfect amount of salt for a noodle soup, enough to season the noodles, but not so much that you can't drink it down alone. The little bits of mitsuba provide the tiniest bit of crunch and herbacious freshness. And the soba was fantastic, as far as I could tell -- very lovely texture. I must balk a little at the price though. The plain soba (which would be really amazing on its own) is $9.50, while the shrimp tempura soba is $18. That means that the one (albeit large) shrimp tempura floating and getting soggy in my soup was $8.50. It was pretty tough on each end too -- I couldn't quite tell if it was overcooked or just the nature of the steroid shrimp.

My dining companions ordered the fried soft-shell crab soba, which looked delicious too, but I didn't try it. Sobakoh also serves plenty of cold soba, which I hear is quite good and the way to go, but it was all about the broth for me, which I think was as good as Honmura-An's -- and the portions get you much closer to being full at the end of the meal. (Whereas at Honmura-An, while the duck soba is divine, I always have enough room for a hamburger afterwards.)

Grade: A-

Total: $33 per person, for my share of four appetizers between four people and a bowl of ebi tempura hot soba.

Will I return? Yes. Next time, as long as the weather is still cool, I'd like to order the vegetable tempura hot soba. And when it gets hot, what could be better than that cool daikon slaw and some cold soba with dunking sauce?

Sobakoh

309 E. 5th St., between 2nd Ave. and 1st Ave
212-254-2244

F Train to 2nd Ave., 6 train to Astor Pl., R train to 8th St.