Uzuraya — Restaurant in Nagano

This is a long-established soba restaurant where you can enjoy Togakushi Soba, one of the three most famous local soba in Japan. The buckwheat noodles are made using a method unique to this region and are usually accompanied by spicy daikon(white Oriental radish), a local specialty, as a condiment, homemade pickles, and tempura made from seasonal vegetables and wild plants. Tempura of seasonal vegetables and mushrooms are freshly fried, crispy and very tasty with soba. The flavor of the soba noodles is also wonderful, and the depth of flavor of the soba sauce and the combination of the two is amazingly good. This restaurant is very famous in the area and it is always very crowded, so to make the most of your time, I recommend that you fill in your name and the time of your visit on the reception sheet at the entrance of the restaurant before it opens, visit the Togakushi Shrine and other tourist spots in the area first, and then come back after it opens to be admitted first. Also, please note that this store only accepts cash as payment.

Oh, and there was one more thing I mustn't forget. There is a huge cedar tree right next to the restaurant that is over 800 years old, and eating soba while looking at it through the window and thinking about the history of this place is also...

10/10! If you want to try the best soba and sobagaki definitely stop here for lunch. Mostly locals, but also some Koreans and Chinese. We arrived from Nagano around 10 and immediately wrote our name on the list in front of the restaurant. We went and did the Togakushi 5 Shrines hike, which is a must do and worth every step. When we came back around 1 PM the older gentlemen/owner was calling guests every now and then. Since I wrote a Western name I made sure he knew we were there waiting. So when it was our time to enter he called us. He was extremely friendly and thanked us more than once for visiting. We choose the cold soba noodles, sobagaki and vegetables tempura. Everything was perfection! Literally one of the best meals we had! Since this was our second time trying soba and the first time trying cold soba we asked the staff how we properly and traditionally eat this. The lovely ladies helped us through this great experience. Everyone was genuine and friendly! One of our best experiences in Japan! Thank you again. We hope to visit...

I had an ōmori zaru soba with mushroom tempuras. The Togakushi soba noodle was very nice, although I personally prefer soba that is more full-frontal and “in-your-face”. If you don’t really like Soba-noodles, these may be the ones you should try, they are a lot milder in the soba-ness grade. The tempuras were light and crispy and not at all greasy.

The soba portion was quite small for an “ōmori” portion but the tempura serving was very generous for the price(¥1,000).

When I returned to the shop for lunch (after having put down my name on the list in the morning), I was worried that this may be a tourist trap as I saw quite a few “Gaijins” and Chinese/Korean customers waiting in the queue outside. I needn’t have to worry, the quality of the food was top notch.

It was funny that the waitress thought I was a clueless foreigner because I didn’t tack in straight away - I was trying to figure out how to photograph the dish - and she kindly started explaining to me how to eat the Soba noodle, in English, despite me being a 100%...