Soba is a type of thin Japanese noodles made from buckwheat flour and wheat flour.  Soba is an incredibly popular, ubiquitous, affordable Japanese food with several quite different ways to eat it.

   “Yaki-soba” (noodle stir-fry) is served in a huge range of restaurants, festival stalls and student dorms because it’s tasty, quick, cheap and incredibly simply to make.  There are even instant yakisoba meals you can purchase from supermarkets and convenience stores that require just boiling water to make.  If you buy the instant stuff, don’t make my mistake and pour the yakisoba sauce into the container with the boiling water and screw it up.  The sauce goes on the noodles AFTER you’ve drained the water, or you’re in for a tasteless noodle-only experience. :(

   ”Zaru-soba” (soba served cold) comes in a dish without seasoning.  You then use chopsticks to soak a mouthful in a separate small cup (called “soba-choko”) of soup before eating.  It looks like the main soba image.

   The name of the soba often changes depending on the other ingredients.  For example, “yamakake-soba” (mountain soba) contains edible wild plants, “tsukimi-soba” (moon-watching soba) has a soft-boiled egg in it, and “tempura-soba” has tempura on top.