Soba-meshi, the name means "soba" means noodles and "meshi" means rice mixed up. It is classified as a B-Grade gourmet food, since it is seen as a sort of street food. This mixed up dish of diced up noodles, diced up cabbage, and rice has gotten nationwide acclaim and has gotten a life of its own in homes as well as restaurants. It has made its way with Flour based cuisine of "Konamon food" and marked its way with: Bokkake Yakisoba, Okonomiyaki, and Takoyaki.
Soba-meshi restaurants are not that easy to find, but if you look for them you will find them. It is usually much easier to look for an Okonomiyaki restaurant which happens to also serve Soba-meshi and a type of fried noodles. Usually the Classic Yakisoba is apart of the menu and sometimes if your lucky you may find Bokkake Yakisoba. Soba-meshi is cooked with little or no oil entirely on high heat usually a flat-top (iron griddle style or teppan-style). So lets check it out shall we? Kobe is famous for Soba-meshi and the reason for that is easy to share as well as to clean up leftovers. It is ideal for the working class who is hungry for something hot, quick, filling, so having places that have Soba-meshi are quite convenient. It has to be eaten, because the flavor can be light and needs to be eaten hot for its optimized taste. There the origins of Soba-meshi can be traced to Nagata in Kobe City from a restaurant called Aomori run by Akiko Aomori. The story goes that Akiko was making yakisoba and a customer asked to use left over cold rice from their lunch box, so she went on to use the old rice with the yakisoba and chopped it all up added a bit of sauce and Soba Meshi was born. It was originally on a secret menu said Akiko, but when word got out more competitors started to place the dish on their menu. It was nick named "Nagata Soba-Meshi" or older customers refer to it as "Aomori Restaurant Soba Meshi". Restaurants that serve soba-meshi make it in their own way. Some while rare make the noodles themselves, some order noodles from a factory, and some even use a machine. It creates a more firm texture in the noodle when it is fresh, but when its older noodles it takes in more flavor from the sauce. So, it depends what the texture and flavor the cook wants. In Kobe the sauce is seen as the main flavor that is desired, so it takes center stage over the noodles. Homemakers will make Soba-meshi from time to time when they have left overs of yakisoba and rice that they need to get rid of. It was a quick way to feed the family and it is delicious, especially with left over beef. The types that can be found by the locals not surprisingly use rose sauce as well as different cuts of beef, bokkake, or karaage chicken as toppings in the Nagata ward. Many of which can be found from the many okonomiyaki restaurants within the ward that each compete for the best taste. Different people have their own variations and their own stories of how their family makes Soba-meshi and it started to develop in other wards after a tragic event. Soba-meshi has a harsh and great history of being widely known from the events of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. A famous shop called Aomori was affected by the disaster, but resumed operations several months later and was featured on the news. Soba Meshi was a dish that had empowered the affected people in their struggle for recovery. It became a symbol of reconstruction as well as a gourmet of Kobe gourmet and Kobe Families. By collecting a few of these family recipes it seems there are many types of Soba-meshi that are not quite as popular, but its probably because they are kept within the family. Each Soba meshi was specific to the tastes of the family members. So the different areas had different foods they like and thus had different left overs to make different soba-meshi.
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