Soba at Soba Ichi, Oakland (San Francisco Bay Area) USA

Cold Soba (Seiro - Regular Size) with dipping sauce, pickles, and condiments

Soba Ichi is a restaurant specialized in Japanese soba (buckwheat) noodles. Their soba is freshly prepared every day from scratch. They are one of the Bay Area restaurants with Michelin-awarded Bib Gourmand status in the year 2019. Since they are the only soba specialty restaurant in the area, make sure to make a reservation one day in advance! 

Restaurant frontal

Bamboo and water element at restaurant frontal

THE RESTAURANT

Soba Ichi is famous for their hand-made soba that is freshly prepared every day from scratch. The entire process is done in house, by hand, from grinding buckwheat flour in a stone mill. Since they make a limited quantity of soba each day, opening hours are also limited to dinner only from Wednesday to Sunday. They also serve izakaya style small plates which can be enjoyed with sake or shochu.

Restaurant front door

APPETIZER

Yamaimo Karaage - Deep fried mountain yam served with salt

A rare treat you can get here is their Yamaimo Karaage, which is a deep fried mountain yam. It is seasoned with salt and sprinkled seaweed. Japanese mountain yam has a more slimy texture comparing to the typical Japanese yam. That's why it's very interesting when you bite onto this savory appetizer with sticky, soft interior and crispy crust.

MAIN COURSE

蒸篭 Seiro (Cold Soba)

The main dish we have here is cold and hot soba. For 蒸篭Seiro or cold soba, it is a dipping soba where the soba is served chilled on a bamboo mat with a warm dipping sauce on the side.

Cold Soba (Seiro - Regular Size) with dipping sauce, pickles, and condiments

鴨蒸篭 Kamo Seiro (Duck cold soba)

Duck cold soba is similar to plain cold soba. It comes with a few slices of duck breasts and dipping sauce has more umami flavor from duck! 

Kamo Seiro (regular size 150g) - cold soba served with sliced duck breast and side of hot dipping sauce

After you are done with soba noodles, don't forget to add hot dashi broth into your dipping sauce! It is such a satisfying finish for this meal set!

Pouring hot dashi broth into the dipping sauce

天ぷらそば Tempura Soba

Tempura Soba comes with soba noodles in a bowl of hot soy dashi broth. Vegetable and shrimp tempura is served on the side.

Tempura Soba

Tempura

MENU

Soba Menu

Small plates, tempura, and rice bowls

CONCLUSION

The restaurant has an amazingly beautiful outdoor and indoor space. Customer service was good and order was ready really quite. I love how their soba noodles are freshly made from scratch every day. Soba has a texture of balanced firmness. The dipping sauce was a little bit salty for me. But after dashi stock was added, it was absolutely delicious! 

Prices wise, they are very similar to old-established soba house in Japan ($15-$20 each entree). Unfortunately, soba meal sets usually serve in a very small portion. For me, I will have to add extra noodle or order an additional entree to be full. >_<" 

TIPS

• Closed on Monday & Tuesday! (Last updated on May 12, 2019)
• Open for dinner only! (Last updated on May 12, 2019)
• Reservations are available 30 days in advance. 
• Outdoor seating is available for walk-ins. 
• If you know you are running late, call the restaurant and they should be able to hold the table for a grace period of 15 minutes before offering the reservation to their waitlist. 
• Only street parking is available.

Soba Ichi Phone: (510) 465-1969 Website: https://sobaichioakland.com/