A Door To Japan - "I-NABA" (LA Times in
March 2002)
A “Soba”
Boom at U.S. West Coast - The Nikkei Magazine
Signs of A Real Boom of “Soba”
in the American West Coast
(Japanese magazine - The Nikkei Restaurant issued
September 2004)
The Japanese restaurant industry in the United States
has developed supported by a popularity of the staple
dish of each period, i.e. teppan-yaki in the 1970’s,
tempura and teriyaki in the 80’s, and sushi
since the 90’s. Although the sushi boom is still
ongoing, the restaurants that add sushi to their menu
is increasing rapidly in big cities such as Los Angeles
and New York, and there are many people who express
their concerns that the sushi restaurants are in excess.
Consequently, the next ‘hit’ dish is
sought in the industry. Among many dishes, the most
promising is soba. In the United States, where over
60% of the population is overweight, the improvement
of their dietary habit is considered a big issue.
Among the Japanese dishes that are considered healthy,
soba, low in calorie and high in nutrients compared
to other grains, is expected to increase its market
share as a diet food taking advantage of the recent
fitness fad.
Soba is becoming increasingly popular in California
where interest in health and esthetic preferences
is high. Recently, in Los Angeles, restaurants that
either specialize or serve soba as main dish have
increased. Today, there are over 20 such restaurants.
Moreover, existing Japanese restaurants and sushi
bars have added soba to their menu and the presence
of soba has become more prevalent. Recently, a competition
on its quality and price has started and each restaurant
is trying to compete with their own feature.
The Fukada, in Irvine in the suburb of Los Angeles,
is a popular restaurant known for its fresh, hand-kneaded
soba. It has pursued making the authentic Japanese
soba, using the pure, organic soba flour produced
in Shari-cho, Hokkaido and using, for soba sauce,
the soup of dried bonito from Yaezu, Shizuoka and
premium dried kelp from Hokkaido. Although the restaurant
is ordering these ingredients all the way from Japan,
it is the idea of Mr. Yasuhiro Fukada, the manager,
to “have as many people enjoy the delicious,
healthy dish as possible.” He is setting reasonable
prices for soba dishes, such as $5.50 (about Yen600
) for kakesoba and $8.50 (about Yen930) for tenzaru.
Many Japanese companies have opened offices in Irvine
and many company representatives live in this area.
Nevertheless, surprisingly, the ratio of customers
is 6 Americans to 4 Japanese. Because the restaurant
is located in the business area, it is crowded with
business people and female office workers during the
lunch hours and frequented by the residents of Irvine
and from its neighboring areas in the evening. “Most
of the American customers are those who are either
health-conscious or those who prefer organic ingredients.
Because they are particular about what they eat, they
seem to prefer the authentic Japanese-style even for
soba,” says Mr. Fukada.
Can Be Arranged Pasta-Style
In contrast, there are restaurants that serve soba
in new way. Shinchi, which opened last year in Santa
Monica, is a restaurant serving much talked-about
fusion cuisine with Mr. Chris ??? as the head chef.
He has become well known while working at the famous
“Tetsuya” in Sydney, Australia and its
chain. He arranges soba like a pasta dish.
A dish that has been introduced even in the Los Angeles
Times is “soba noodle with cooked pork”
($14.50). Half-boiled soba is sautéed together
with square-cut steamed pork and vegetables such as
lotus root, bok-choy, and shimeji mushroom. It is
then seasoned with soup from cooked pork and soy sauce.
Because it is a hearty meal, it is preferred as the
main dish for dinner by young people.
Ichimi
USA, which is based in Torrance, California, operates
5 restaurants in the Los Angeles area, such as Ichimian
Honten, specializing in soba dishes, and Inaba, a
sushi bar. All of them are serving the house-made
soba. This company, which ventured into the United
States in 1999 anticipating “after sushi is
soba,” has ordered soba flour from Shinshu,
and by bringing noodle making machines from Japan,
is now producing 400 servings of soba per day. It
plans to open self-service style soba specialty restaurants
in the future. Mr. Shunichi Hosoi, the executive manager,
hopes to “popularize soba as the fast
food of Japan.”
Soba is called “buckwheat”
in English and is cultivated widely in North America.
Because buckwheat is mixed with flour and used to
make pancakes and waffles in the United States, people
have always been familiar with buckwheat. Therefore,
people have grasped the image of Japanese soba as
“fresh and healthy pasta made from buckwheat.”
To popularize soba in the United States, we need to
appeal this aspect more positively.
Restaurants that are putting
a great deal of effort in soba dishes tend to insist
on soba flour produced in Japan. However, as the demand
for soba flour increases, the attention is being placed
on the soba flour made locally. Especially, the state
of Manitoba in the mid-south Canada is a great source
producing over 100 thousand tons of buckwheat annually.
There are many farms that cultivate improved breed
for export to Japan. There are several noodle companies
in the United States and Canada that produce rehydratable
noodles and frozen noodles using buckwheat from Manitoba.
It seems Ichimi USA is also thinking of producing
soba locally using buckwheat from Manitoba in the
future.
Because the cost per customer of soba dish is cheap,
it is a dish that can target a broad range of customers.
Although the purely Japanese style soba such as kake
and zaru is the mainstream today, we can expect the
spread of soba like that of sushi in the future once
other new ways of eating soba are thought up or its
topping variation increases.
(Reported in Japanese by Miyuki Sato, Nikkei Correspondent
in U.S.)
-An English translation
is made by Editor, MLT Website-
Total Pursuit for the Authentic Taste - Restaurant
"I-NABA"
Restaurant
INABA Torrance is
located along Hawthorne Blvd. in the Town Center
plaza. This place is always filled with customers
for both lunch and dinner. Once you enter the restaurant,
the gorgeous tempura bar made of marble and teahouse
style sushi bar welcome you. Their paper lanterns
with sliding paper doors are also outstanding, making
you feel as if you were in Japan.
Torrance INABA
20920 Hawthorne Blvd.
Torrance, CA
310-371-6675
Located on the corner of MacArthur and Fairview,
Restaurant
INABA South Coast stands conveniently
close to South Coast Plaza. An authentic sushi menu
has been added to the spacious and newly appointed
sushi bar at Restaurant INABA South Coast. The restaurant’s
modern,
yet, traditional Japanese-style interior was designed
by Tokuhiro Barada from Tokyo, who is also in charge
of interior design for all INABA group restaurants.
Both the Restaurant INABA South Coast branch and
Torrance branch are dedicated to authentic taste,
loyally keeping to the fundamentals of Japanese
cuisine. They are serving the same taste of sushi
that you can find at Sushiyoshi, the authentic sushi
restaurant in Ginza, and tempura with the taste
from Tenmaru, the best tempura restaurant in Ginza,
Japan. At the newly remodeled South Coast INABA,
the popular hand-made soba is being served daily,
as well as good old Ginza no Youshoku (Japanese
traditional western dish).
South Coast INABA
2901 W. MacArthur Blvd., #108
Santa Ana, CA
Tel: 714-751-6201
INABA’s specialties are tempura, sushi, and
soba. The ingredients they use are thoroughly organic
and fresh, meeting today’s demand for healthy
food.
Crispy tempura items are very popular, especially
at both Torrance and South Coast locations, attracting
many selective tempura fans. The perfect amount
of deep-fried, INABA tempura quickens your appetite
with its look and fragrant smell. Tempura at INABA
is made before you as you sit at their grass-covered
tempura bar. That is what makes INABA unique - you
can enjoy the view and sound of tempura neatly being
made while enjoying your meal. INABA offers various
tempura set menus, and one of their popular tempura
items is Tempura-Gozen ($19.00~30.00), which comes
with fresh and vivid colored sashimi of tuna, yellowtail,
white fish, geoduck, and octopus, and a bowl of
miso soup and a dish of chawan-mushi (steamed egg
custard.)
INABA’s
soba is cordially made by professionals trained
in Japan. It is served using flour freshly ground
in the morning everyday. “We use coarsely-grounded
buckwheat as a main ingredient so that the flavor
of our soba is totally different from others,”
says Mr. Goshi, the manager of the INABA Torrance.
The organic-made soup base enhances the flavor of
the hand-made soba and sets you on a Japanese gourmet
adventure. The stock is made of dried bonito, mackerel,
anchovy, and kombu sea vegetable aged for several
days.
A popular soba item is Ten-Seiro ($9.50), in which
noodles are served cold on a wicker bamboo plate
alongside a bowl of hot broth crowned with kaki-age,
a deep-fried patty of chopped seafood and vegetable
in tempura batter. INABA carries various kinds of
sake as well as wine in 30 varieties. You will surely
find your favorites that go well with your meal.
INABA has been awarded the grand prix for tempura
for two consecutive years, as well as for soba overwhelmingly.
INABA keeps authentic Japanese tastes while pursuing
each customer’s satisfaction. All the professional
chefs at INABA have more than 30 years experience
in Japanese food. The Executive Chief Chef Mr. Maezawa
says, “Enjoy our sensational show while listening
to the subtle sound of fresh shrimp tempura being
made before you.
A Door To Japan
(from Los Angeles Times on March 27, 2002)
The minute I cross the threshold at I-naba, I'm
overcome by déjà vu. In a Torrance
mini-mall, I feel as if I've walked into a restaurant
in a small Japanese town. It's a stylish place
of dainty flower arrangements, slanted mirrors and
mustard-yellow tablecloths. Delicate bamboo shades
shield the windows. All you hear is hushed conversation
and faint music—at least when the sizzling
deep fryer momentarily falls silent.
This spare dining room is not the only
place to eat here, though. Hidden by curtains is
a private tempura bar for customers who advance-order
lavish yorokobi-an dinners. Slightly
worn blue curtains hang above the main kitchen,
but not so low as to hide what the chefs are doing.
Mostly, they are frying. I-naba serves a wide
range of hot and cold Japanese dishes as well as
the obligatory sashimi first course for those with
more to spend. But crisp, clean-tasting tempura
is the main event here. It comes in elegant, complex
set menus; you're supposed to work your way into
tempura gradually (rarely, if ever, will you see
a Japanese diner plunging directly into a fried
food course).
Tempura gozen ($30)
starts with perfectly cut sashimi of tuna, yellowtail,
white fish, geoduck and octopus, followed by a green
salad tossed with a ginger vinaigrette. You also
get a bowl of miso soup and a dish of chawan-mushi
(a custard stocked with ginkgo nuts, shiitake, shrimp
and fish). Then, and only then, comes some
of the best tempura anywhere outside Japan. First,
three long shrimp, tails pointing skyward, flanked
by two pieces of boned sole. These are followed
by a plate of batter-fried green beans, eggplant,
onion, pumpkin and a hot pepper stuffed with a little
ground beef. On the side, there is a dipping
sauce laced with grated white radish. Steamed short-grain
Japanese rice is served in a covered bowl. There
are also salty homemade pickles (tsukemono) cured
in rice wine with rock salt and basil. Expect to
find tiny slices of cucumber, yellow radish and,
if you're lucky, purple basil.
There are options.
Shrimp tempura gozen ($22) gets you some
of the sashimi, no custard and fewer pieces of tempura.
An assorted tempura course ($40), the largest of
the tempura set menus, adds a second wave of tempura,
cold soba noodles and an unexpected dessert, such
as New York cheesecake. Still, tempura isn't
all I-naba serves. One entire page of the menu is
devoted to fried buckwheat noodles (soba) with toppings,
cold with dipping sauce or hot in dashi,
the familiar Japanese broth of dried bonito. There
are bento dinner boxes, pressed sushi dinners and
a variety of wonderful appetizers, a few of which
have surprising touches. I-naba is proud that
it makes its soba by hand. My favorite way to eat
it here is ten-seiro ($9.50), for which the
noodles are served cold on a wickerwork bamboo plate
alongside a bowl of hot broth crowned with kaki-age,
a deep-fried patty of chopped seafood and vegetables
in tempura batter.
The appetizer menu deserves
notice. Washu-gyu is a clone of the incomparably
tender Kobe beef raised in Oregon. It's cut into
bite-sized chunks, broiled and served with dipping
sauce. Oddly, it comes with a big scoop of American
tuna salad, made with plenty of mayo. Perhaps the
chef is attempting a Japanese take on vitello
tonnato. Another appetizer is saikyoyaki,
miso-marinated sea bass broiled in the oven. This
is one of the best fish ideas anywhere, buttery
and sweet with notes of caramel and smoke in every
bite. If you feel adventurous, call a day in advance
and order one of those yorokobi-an dinners
(basically, Japanese tea ceremony food plus tempura
dishes), which range in price from $40 to $70. As
in any Japanese restaurant that serves tea ceremony
food, it's impossible to predict what ingredients
will appear in the meal, only that you can expect
everything to be extremely fresh. And that
tempura, in all its deep fried glory, will be the
featured player in your dinner.
A “Soba”
Boom at W. Coast - The Nikkei Magazine 
fast
food of Japan.”
modern,
yet, traditional Japanese-style interior was designed
by Tokuhiro Barada from Tokyo, who is also in charge
of interior design for all INABA group restaurants.
Both the Restaurant INABA South Coast branch and
Torrance branch are dedicated to authentic taste,
loyally keeping to the fundamentals of Japanese
cuisine. They are serving the same taste of sushi
that you can find at Sushiyoshi, the authentic sushi
restaurant in Ginza, and tempura with the taste
from Tenmaru, the best tempura restaurant in Ginza,
Japan. At the newly remodeled South Coast INABA,
the popular hand-made soba is being served daily,
as well as good old Ginza no Youshoku (Japanese
traditional western dish).
INABA’s
soba is cordially made by professionals trained
in Japan. It is served using flour freshly ground
in the morning everyday. “We use coarsely-grounded
buckwheat as a main ingredient so that the flavor
of our soba is totally different from others,”
says Mr. Goshi, the manager of the INABA Torrance.
The organic-made soup base enhances the flavor of
the hand-made soba and sets you on a Japanese gourmet
adventure. The stock is made of dried bonito, mackerel,
anchovy, and kombu sea vegetable aged for several
days. 
There are options.
Shrimp tempura gozen ($22) gets you some
of the sashimi, no custard and fewer pieces of tempura.
An assorted tempura course ($40), the largest of
the tempura set menus, adds a second wave of tempura,
cold soba noodles and an unexpected dessert, such
as New York cheesecake. Still, tempura isn't
all I-naba serves. One entire page of the menu is
devoted to fried buckwheat noodles (soba) with toppings,
cold with dipping sauce or hot in dashi,
the familiar Japanese broth of dried bonito. There
are bento dinner boxes, pressed sushi dinners and
a variety of wonderful appetizers, a few of which
have surprising touches. I-naba is proud that
it makes its soba by hand. My favorite way to eat
it here is ten-seiro ($9.50), for which the
noodles are served cold on a wickerwork bamboo plate
alongside a bowl of hot broth crowned with kaki-age,
a deep-fried patty of chopped seafood and vegetables
in tempura batter.
