Somen Noodley Goodness

Awhile back, Mike and Colleen started up a dinner party in their town. Kinda an international awareness by culinary means, which of course means tastiness!

Ichinomiya is famous for somen noodles -a type of thin noodle- so the weekend we were there, the dinner party was scheduled to be an all somen affair. So off to dinner we went. The host, Naruo, is actually a somen factory owner. So after downing loads of noodles and watching some sumo, it was off to his factory for a tour.

Naruo's house is directly across from his factory. Very convenient as his work days are typically 12 hours. Insane! And apparently he still manages to be a lively man-about-town. Tough guy.

Right; the factory was pretty neat. We were there after hours, so the only noodles we saw were hanging to dry. Mike and Colleen once got to see the noodle-making process in all its insanity. Still pretty cool. I really, really wanted to touch all the noodles, but somehow managed to restrain myself.

And to cap it all off, Naruo gave us loads of somen to take back. Two packages in, we're wondering why we've been so focused on udon and soba. Somen is the wave of the future!