Soba

I love soba, but I never actually made it myself. That changed at 7am one morning last week, incredibly, in a shed behind the house of a soba master in Seki City, Gifu Prefecture. We had stopped at his shop the day before.

My wife and I and a houseguest visiting from Japan cooked this dish on New Year's Eve from a recipe dug up in a Japanese newspaper. God, it was good.

I've only recently discovered Soba Koh, a tiny spot in New York's East Village where you can watch Chef Hiromitsu Takahashi roll and cut soba by hand as you walk into the place. I don't know what took me so long.