Shimbashi Soba

Shimbashi Soba at Paragon
290 Orchard Road
#B1-41 Paragon, Singapore 238859
Tel: 6735-9882 Fax: 6735-9883
Business Hours: 11:30 am to 10:00 pm

If you've ever been to the food paradise basement level at Paragon, I'm sure you'd not miss the crowd outside a Japanese restaurant (Shimbashi Soba) watching how the chef makes the soba from scratch... right from the machine sifting the soba (or is it buck wheat) flour, to kneading the dough, to cutting the noodles that are as uniform as you imagine.  Every strand of noodle is cut to precision, same thickness and length.

The thought of eating the freshly made soba got the better of me...it was also because that buck wheat was supposedly a healthier choice compared to other forms of noodle.  I decided to part with $20 bucks to try out this soup soba with tempura, which I requested for all ebi.  The menu came with an assortment of tempura.  I was pleased that there was no additional charge for the change since some where in the menu mentioned that the chef had specially selected a particular type of prawn for the soba.

My soba set came after 15mins later.  Waiting time was considered reasonable since it was a weekend dinner time.

With the hype about how good the soba taste and for the price I was paying, I did have come expectation.  It had imagined it to be as good compared to one which I tried in Japan.  To my great disappointment, both the soba and tempura did not meet my expectation...  Firstly, the soup wasn't pipping hot and the soba lacked the chewiness.  The tempura prawn was a little soft and did not seem to be as fresh as it should be.  The tempura coating wasn't that crispy as well....Unfortunately, I wasn't impressed at all.  It was quite a disappointment considering all the rave reviews around....or perhaps I should give the cold soba a try the next time.