Tempura Soba at Tanabe Restaurant

Reggie and I had dinner at Tanabe Restaurant, our favorite Japanese restaurant in the area. Reggie, as usual, had her shake don, salmon sashimi over a bed of sushi rice. I like trying different items on the menu, and decided to try the tempura soba with inari sushi.

First to arrive was the tempura soba. They serve the tempura separate from the soup so that it stays crispy until you dunk it in the soup. The soba, buckwheat noodles, were cooked to just the right tenderness. The broth was a comforting blend of savory saltiness. There’s even a side of spring onions so you can put as much, or as little, as you like.

Mr. Tanabe’s tempura selection for this dish is kisu (Japanese whiting), ika (squid), ebi (prawn), satsuma-imo (sweet potato), and okura (okra).

Part of the dish included inari sushi, sushi rice wrapped in bean curd skin.

We usually eat at the sushi bar to watch Mr. Tanabe and his crew work.

As we were about to leave, Mr. Tanabe came rushing out to give us our dessert: two slices each of the best Fuji apples I’ve ever eaten. It was perfectly chilled, sweet, and bursting with a distinct Fuji apple flavor. The nearest I’ve ever come to tasting something like that was Fuji Apple Kit Kat. And this was better!