‘When I was young, you were so proud of your skills, but one day you were astonished when you were told, “This is not soba”…’
I thought I would play until I was 30, so when I was young, well, I lived doing what I liked (laughs). Perhaps because he couldn’t stand to see me like that, one day an acquaintance asked me if I wanted to try my hand at udon at a diner in Shinjuku. That’s when I was introduced to Sanuki noodles.
It was difficult at first, but as I gradually got the hang of it, I could clearly see that the noodles were getting better and better. As I became more and more interested and improved my skills, I became more and more greedy, and when I heard that there was a good Sanuki noodle chef, I went to see him to check the taste and made myself a rival.
And when I was satisfied that I had beaten him, I would say to myself, “Okay, I’ve already beaten him”, and then I would say to myself, “Now it’s time to beat him”, like an old-time dojo-warrior. In fact, the Sanuki noodles I made were so well received that I was a true tengu at the time. I had absolute confidence in my skills.
Eventually, I also started making soba noodles, but the reaction of customers was not quite right. I changed the broth and tried many other things, but the customers’ reaction was not as good as with udon. Then one day, a friend whispered in my ear, “This is different from soba”. I couldn’t believe my ears. Then which one is buckwheat noodles? He replied, “The buckwheat flour is different. I’ll send you real buckwheat flour from the countryside. He later sent me buckwheat flour from Nagano.
I was shocked. This is buckwheat noodles? The tengu’s nose was broken off at the root. After that, I was absorbed in the world of buckwheat noodles and devoted myself to buckwheat noodles for a while… This is how I got completely absorbed in the world of buckwheat noodles.
In Sanuki, the home of udon
The challenge of a restaurant that can compete on the basis of buckwheat noodles alone
I started my first restaurant in Kagawa Prefecture. I was confident in the taste of my buckwheat noodles, but I was also worried about whether I would be accepted as a buckwheat noodle shop. I wasn’t sure if it would be accepted as a buckwheat noodle shop, so I decided to start out as an udon shop. Eventually, we gradually started offering soba noodles as well. I was secretly burning with a fighting spirit that one day I would make it a restaurant in Sanuki that could compete solely on the basis of buckwheat noodles.
Then one day, I heard a customer talking about how delicious the frozen soba noodles were too, and I thought, “Oh, there is demand for soba in Sanuki too” and “Okay, I can go for soba. I was convinced that we could compete on the basis of buckwheat noodles alone. Thus began the challenge to become the best buckwheat noodle shop in Kagawa.
If you ask me whether I was confident that people in Kagawa Prefecture, who are used to udon, would understand the appeal of soba, I have to admit that I was. We had examined buckwheat flours from all over the country and purchased the ones we were satisfied with, and we were also confident in our handmade buckwheat. I was convinced that our buckwheat noodles would charm the palates of even the people of Sanuki.
In that sense, it was not impossible if I wanted to compete only with “handmade” buckwheat noodles. However, perhaps because I am a self-made person, I get very tired when I make buckwheat noodles. When I get tired, my work becomes messy and I can’t offer satisfactory buckwheat noodles. I began to be attacked by such a dilemma.
You didn’t buy a noodle-making machine, you bought the human side of the boss.
And if he betrayed me, I could just give up and say I didn’t look hard enough.
Besides, I wanted to do more than just handmade buckwheat noodles; I also wanted to cook dishes such as buckwheat kaiseki. It is quite difficult for one person to do both handmade soba and cooking, so I began to think about using Yamato’s noodle-making machine for that.
If buckwheat flour is forced to be pressed down, the particles are crushed. If this happens, the hot water does not flow through the buckwheat and the taste is lost. With hands, the particles do not get crushed because they escape even if you press down hard, but with a machine, it was not easy to release the force without crushing the particles.
It was the Yamato noodle-making machine that made this possible. As with buckwheat flour and ingredients, my motto is to check each and every thing I use with my own eyes. I checked various noodle-making machines myself, and one of the machines that convinced me was the Yamato noodle-making machine.
I finally decided on Yamato because of the president’s personality
I fell in love with the president’s personality.
To be honest, there were other good noodle-making machines, but what finally made me decide on Yamato was actually the personality of the president. I was given the opportunity to talk with the president at length, and as we thoroughly discussed our opinions, I fell in love with his human qualities.
It’s not so much that I bought a noodle-making machine, but that I bought a president, including his humanity. If you are ever betrayed by it, you can just give up and say that you didn’t have the eyes to see it. It means that the president had the integrity and passion to make you feel that way.
Taking grandma’s taste as the starting point,
I serve what I want to eat.
So I can cook comfortably.
I am already old, so from now on I want to enjoy the world of soba and cooking that I like without overworking myself too much. Soba is more demanding on the body than udon, so I would like to master a ‘chic’ restaurant that pays particular attention to dishes and wild vegetables, while also using the power of machines. I think soba is a culture where you can taste ‘chic’.
In fact, my origins are in the taste of my grandmother’s cooking. It is simple, but imbued with love, and the more you chew it, the deeper the flavour you can enjoy. I think there is true love there. I feel the ‘sophistication’ of my grandmother’s homemade food, which is not fancy, and she wants us to enjoy seasonal food in a simple dish.
Nowadays, I try to decide on a menu based on what I want to eat. I enjoy cooking what I want to eat. That’s why I can stand in the kitchen comfortably every day without getting bored. There’s nothing better than food that the cook feels good about making. I think that the reason why my grandma’s food tastes so good must be because she herself feels good about making it.
