Walked out of our hostel in Kamakura (that’s not me above) and immediately stumbled across this tiny unassuming restaurant called Bonzo.
Turns out it has a michelin star and serves up some of the best soba in Japan. We sat down for lunch and asked for the chef to choose for us (we couldn’t read the menu…)
First up some stunning tempura – the prawn was immense and the batter light and crispy.
a warm duck & ginger broth came next (with soba for dipping)
the soba are handmade in the open kitchen just before they’re cooked – after making up the dough it’s flattened out into long sheets and then the noodles are all cut to the same length and thickness using a wooden multi-pronged knife-like contraption.
the soba noodles at Bonzo were perfectly chilled and nice and stringy, not clumped together or too soft and were the perfect accompaniment for the tsuyu dipping sauce/duck broth – the whole restaurant was drowned in the sound of people getting their full slurp on the go (you get used to it)
the remaining broth / tsuyu was then mixed with the leftover water from cooking the soba and served up alongside some miso.
bout £15 each, absolute winner.
Damn that looks good, I’ve heard Japan is quite pricey so $15 (pounds) seems pretty reasonable
After that I hopped onto the Keihin-Tohoku line and JR railed it to Ishigawacho which is three stops past Yokohama to meet up with a friend. We had lunch in China Town and strolled the streets a bit, looked at the Chinese temple then went for a long walk to the foreigners’ cemetery where many Westerners are buried and is apparently quite interesting to read the inscriptions – but it was closed. We then went to the Harbour View Park where there’s a great view of the harbour and the Rainbow Bridge and Yokohama itself – on a good day anyway! Though the visibility wasn’t the greatest, fortunately the rain has eased off so it was a pleasant stroll around to Osambashi Pier which is a huge pier/ wharf/ meeting place/scenic spot with interesting wooden planking. There we rewarded ourselves for the long walk with coffee and cake and a good gossip (Me to tell of all my adventures, for my friend a chance to speak English and hear all the gossip from home) We then walked back to Kannai station and went our separate ways.