Soba Noodle Azuma

I’ve been deprived of noodles in the city for a number of months now. Sure, there are sometimes where I get some Taiwanese noodles, but I also love soba noodles too. I was around the Columbus Circle area, and I was scouring for some alternative ramen places. This one peaked my interest because their specialty was not ramen but soba also known as buckwheat noodles. Buckwheat noodles are supposed to be pretty healthy for you, and on a summer NYC day like today, it seems like a win when opting for cold buckwheat noodles with a cold dip.

Ambiance

The interior is kind of your typical Japanese restaurant affair. They do have tables somewhat close to each other, but they have kept the COVID window separators between tables. Not once, did I feel uncomfortable at all.

Because I came for a Friday solo lunch, the service was attentive and speedy. There were a number of other solo diners that were just in to grab a quick bite and run. The price is comparable to other fast Japanese restaurants in the area.

Food

The ten sashi gozen came with medium sized buckwheat noodles, assorted tempura (with tempura sauce), assorted sashimi, rice, soba (with dip and scallions), yellow pickled radish, lotus roots, and rice. The noodles were a pretty decent sized lunch portion and tasted like other soba noodles that I’ve had. For the soba dip, they gave scallions and wasabi. Just mix it together and dip the noodles in. The tempura was pretty crispy and good. There were 3 shrimp pieces, green pepper, eggplant, and some other vegetables that I don’t remember. The sashimi came with small cuts of tuna and salmon. There wasn’t much to write home about, but it tasted pretty fresh. The seasonal side dish was some lotus roots with a spicy marinade. Just like normal bento boxes, this set was pretty playful and enjoyable. Everything was pretty good as expected.

The black sesame ice cream was my option for dessert. As part of the ten sashi gozen set, you can opt for one of 3 ice cream flavors (green tea, vanilla, black sesame) or a mochi ice cream. Because I love black sesame, I ordered this. I was surprisingly underwhelmed because the black sesame flavor was so subtle that I found it uncharacteristic compared to other restaurants I’ve been at. It tasted more like vanilla ice cream with black sesame specks. It was good just because it was a dessert, but I wanted something more with black sesame concentrations.

Final Verdict

The star of the show here is definitely the soba. The first thought in my mind was this is a perfect place for after work dinners in the midtown area especially during the summer. Many scoff the idea of eating cold noodles, but the soba is actually pretty good and is worth a bite.

Yelp Jabs

The food here is OVERPRICED. We ordered the soba set which was $25 and it came with only 6 pieces of sashimi.

The funny thing about this Yelper is that the picture literally shows 6 pieces of sashimi, and yet they still complained about it. My theory of some Yelpers is that they like to punish their expectations even though the pictures literally shows the truth.

We ordered the duck soba and nabeyaki udon. Both is just meh.

I’m not sure what this elitist was thinking. I cannot fathom out of this world duck soba or nabeyaki udon. The broth without a doubt is going to timid. Of course they were disappointed because they simply have poor expectations. Duck is delicious, but duck ramen/udon with broth is almost always on the very bland side of the spectrum.