Soba

Buckwheat is nutty and flat. Whole slices float on the broth and season by smell.

Buckwheat is nutty and flat; shredded myoga is the only sharp thing in the bowl.

Buckwheat is bitter and flat; the tin adds citrus, salt and a slow burn.

Kombu glutamate times bonito inosinate over bitter grain. Cold, concentrated, dipped.

Salt and ferment are the only two things buckwheat bitterness answers to.

Raw sliced allium bite cuts straight through the earthy noodle.

Volatile mustard heat clears the palate between mouthfuls of grey starch.

Marine glutamate and toasted seaweed: both sit in the same roasty register.

Grated raw, it thins the dipping sauce and adds a sharp watery bite.

Tempura on the side, dipped in the same broth. Fat lands on bitterness.

Sweet rice wine is what stops the dipping sauce reading as pure salt.

Toasted seed oil doubles the nutty half of the buckwheat and hides the bitter half.

Cold buckwheat and burnt seed run the same nutty pyrazines.

Rendered fat floats on the hot broth and coats the noodle as it lifts.

Perilla aldehyde is sharp and green against a noodle that is neither.

Sticky ferment clings where sauce runs off. Ammonia and earth agree.

Ground into the dipping sauce, Nagano style. Tannin meets tannin.

Kneaded into the dough: two bitter green things, one grassy one earthy.

Shared pyrazines and shared bitterness. A soba-flour biscuit gives it away.