Stepping into Soba Factory it is easy to feel far away from the charming 25-square-meter noodle joints tucked away down the tiny streets of Japan. But the large, posh restaurant, which is situated on the ground floor of newly renovated Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park, will quickly have you waxing lyrical about past trips to Japan as dishes of authentic fare begin to arrive on the table.
The aptly named restaurant specializes in soba, Japan’s hardy buckwheat noodles.
Executive chef of Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park, Michael Hogan, brought in Mizuho Nagao, a chef with a distinguished history in soba, to helm the restaurant’s kitchen. Nagao grew up in his family’s soba shop in Fukuoka where his award-winning soba chef father introduced him to the art of making the noodles. From age eighteen—after reaching the required age to earn his soba-making license—Nagao stepped into the family kitchen where he worked for 13 years mastering the dish before he opened his own Fukuoka restaurant. Now in Bangkok, the chef is showing off his skill and shedding light on the importance of fresh soba in a world where packaged noodles reign.
Living in the age of convenience, it’s not surprising that few Japanese restaurants in the city hand make their noodles. But Hogan argues that when it comes to soba, authenticity is key. “If you want to slurp up the sensation of firm yielding noodles wrapped in the umami nuttiness that the dish is known for, you need to have the real deal.” That’s why he look towards the mastery of Nagao, who now makes two-to-three batches of fresh 100-percent and 80-percent buckwheat flour soba noodles daily in the restaurant’s open kitchen.
The Soba Factory offers soba in all the ways you’d find it in Japan: totoro style with grated Nagaimo yam and seaweed; seiro style with white leek and wasabi; or kake, which is served simply with spring onion and dipping sauce. But it’s not all about the adornments, in fact Hogan is convinced the magic of good soba starts from the buckwheat. “Look deep into the flavors steeped in a bowl of soba. Do they taste nutty and earthy? Rounded and mild as buckwheat should?” Everything from the very precise cut of the noodle to the amount of pressure when kneading the dough affects the end bowl.
Soba masters must adjust their dough according to the humidity in the air and for Nagao, moving from Japan to Bangkok means dealing with a whole new climate. He uses buckwheat imported from Japan and grown locally in Thailand, which both behave and grind differently, to make balanced dough that is well suited for Thailand’s humid environment. It’s a skill that only the most practiced of chefs have the ability to achieve. “It’s a little like type rope walking, if you lean a little to one side, you have to pull back a little the other way to stay balanced. If you don’t do this you cannot make it to the end,” says Hogan.
But when it comes to authentic soba, it’s not all on the chef. To taste soba at its peak deliciousness, it needs to be slurped up within ten minutes of being boiled to avoid drying out when served cold, or becoming oversaturated by the broth when served hot. Nagao believes that the taste of the noodle is felt in the throat, not the tongue, so shamelessly slurping—take as few bites as possible—is the only way to go. But soba novices need not to stress, Soba Factory offers an introduction to eating the noodles in their menu.
The restaurant also serves a mean assortment of yakitori skewers and tempura to accompany the noodles. Try the tsukune, bouncy chicken meatballs slathered with sweet yakitori sauce, with your bowl of hot soba with duck. Slurp the noodles quickly, but carefully contemplate the dish that takes years to master.
SOBA FACTORY. Bangkok Marriott Marquis Queen’s Park. 199 Sukhumvit Soi 22. email restaurant-reservations.bkkqp@marriotthotels.com or call 02 059 5999.
