Inside a 550-year-old restaurant in Japan 4
Honke Owariya is one of the best soba noodle shops in Kyoto, opened in 1465. Despite its age, the shop still maintains its small scale and space.
Initially, Honke Owariya was a sweet shop in the Owarinokuni area (now in Aichi Prefecture).
Customers coming to the restaurant noticed that the characters on the sign next to the gate read `soba mochi`.
The current Honke Owariya that visitors see was built in the early Meiji period in the traditional Kyoto house style.
Over hundreds of years, the reputation of the restaurant and its soba dishes have always attracted diners.
The secret to Honke Owariya’s delicious dishes lies in good ingredients and delicate, meticulous preparation.
Myogaya Nobuhisa, a writer for the travel guide site Live Japan, came to the restaurant and enjoyed some of its signature dishes.
Myogaya took the first tray of noodles without adding any side dishes and enjoyed it immediately.
Ho-rai soba noodles from Honke Owariya.
The second dish Myogaya calls is rikyu soba, a style of fresh soba served with bean curd, rikyufu (fried flour cake with sesame oil) and hot soup.
Finally Myogaya tried soba sushi.
After enjoying the dishes, Myogaya also met and talked with Ariko Inaoka, the 16th generation owner of the restaurant.
According to Ariko, Honke Owariya is famous for soba noodles, but the shop still focuses on making confectionery from traditional to modern such as soba mochi, crispy soba cakes, and soba balls (Western-style cakes made from eggs, sugar, and toasted buckwheat flour).
The shop is currently open from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every day, with the candy counter selling from 9:00 a.m.
Located near Nijo Castle and Kyoto Imperial Palace, it is only a 5-minute walk from Karasuma-oike station of the Kyoto subway line.
