Shisen An – Simple but authentic high quality soba at a home

Shisen An − 紫仙庵

This restaurant locates residential area near Rinshi no mori, 15 mins working from Musashi koyama station.

Only residences are near this restaurant, it’s not surprising because this restaurant has been renovated the owner chef’s house which is built in 1952 after his retirement when he was 57 years old.

The inside is luxuriously very wide but only around 10 seats are available.

At the entrance, there is a paper which is describing the prefecture where the soba; buckwheat has produced. Also they make use of two different type of soba are utilized for coarsely ground soba and towari soba. On a day with following, the soba from Hokkaido Mashu was for towari soba, and the soba from Fukui maruoka is for Coarsely ground soba.

The soba is home made one and produced limited producing everyday, sometimes sold out especially for coarsely ground soba, as the portion is limitted, so it is recommended to come there just after opens. Or escape from busy day. Also both typical coarsely ground soba and typical Towari soba are slightly raggedly made, but the one here are even strong but texture of soba is very smoothly.

Must order

Soba

Coarsely ground cold soba / 粗挽き蕎麦せいろ – 950 yen

*SignatureThis coarsely ground cold soba is called Arabiki (粗挽き) soba in Japanese, as the soba beans has grinded rouoghly, the flavor of soba is very strong, and they are chewy too. The taste is very strong, so you can taste them without soba dip sauce.

When white radish are available, you could ask to add them on top like follows, the spicy taste of white radish become good accent for soba which has great flavor.

Also this soba is limited, if you want to eat this, it is better to come there just after the restaurant opens.

After the soba finished, Soba-yu would be served, this soba-yu is thick like an oatmeal, typically this would pour to the soba dip sauce, but you can even taste as it is.

Spicy grated white radish towari soba / 辛味大根おろし十割蕎麦 − 1500 yen

The soba used to this dish is called Towari soba, Towari (十割） means 100% in Japanese, so this means, this soba is made by 100% buckwheat flour without any additional ingredient like flour.

Typically this style soba’s texture become roughly too, but the one here are very smoothly and still feeling great soba flavor, the flavor and soba taste is less than Coarsely ground soba, however this soba is well balanced and tasting good going down into throat.

Also this soba is with grated white radish, this radish is very spicy for good accent with the soba. Spicy but well balanced the soba sauce.

Soba-mae / Appetizer

An appetize on a soba restaurant is called Soba-mae, mae means “before” so this means the dish before eating soba.

Coarsely ground soba-gaki / 粗挽き蕎麦がき – 1000yen

*Signature this soba-gaki is like a buckwheat dumplingm and utilized coarsely ground one, so the soba flavor is very strong, but like rice cake, the soba-gaki is very soft especially during hot, so you should eat this quickly before getting cold.

Pick them to on the seaweed, and add wasabi and eat with soy sauce.

One tips for you, this soba-gaki is one of ancient style of soba, before the soba noodle style had been established, this soba-gaki use to be eaten in a old days.

Grilled soba miso / 蕎麦味噌焼き – 500 yen

This dish is made by mixed miso, crushed soba beans and Japanese shiso, thanks to savoy taste, this should be good with sake, so you must order this when you order sake here.

Japanese omelette / ダシまき卵 950

Three eggs and fish soup stock are used for this omelette, the taste is slightly sweet. But like a pudding, the egg is very soft and feeling strong flavor of fish soup stock. This is a classic menu for Soba restaurant, but the quality is very high.

Beverages

Three Japanese sake tasting set – 1000 yen

They has over 30 sake stocks, and you can choose three from the menu, this is very good cost performance and it is good way to find your proffered sake here.

Just for your information, my selection on a day is follows.

• Denshu / 田酒 *left
• Bon / 梵
• Kamoshibito kuheiji / 醸し人九平次

Restaurant detail