Tempura prawn soba/udon (1-for-1: $23++)!
Japanese restaurant tempura prawn soba + tempura prawn udon $23++ via 1-for-1 promo — two noodle bowls for the price of one.
Saturday lunch with BB at a Japanese chain restaurant — another 1-for-1 promo deal because we apparently spent the week mainlining 1-for-1 dining deals. Tempura prawn soba for me, tempura prawn udon for BB.
We ordered:
- Tempura prawn soba (1-for-1 set)
- Tempura prawn udon (1-for-1 set)
Total: $23++ for both.
The soba came as cold buckwheat noodles served on a bamboo zaru with a small carafe of tsuyu dipping sauce on the side. Slim, dark-brown soba strands with proper buckwheat nuttiness, properly rinsed in cold water so they had bite. Tsuyu was a clean dashi-shoyu-mirin mix with grated daikon, wasabi, and chopped scallion to mix in.
Udon was the hot bowl — thick white wheat noodles in a clear dashi broth, with shiitake, kamaboko (fish cake slice), wakame seaweed, and a few slices of spring onion floating on top. Both bowls came with the same tempura prawns on a separate plate — three large prawns each, lightly battered in airy tempura, deep-fried to that golden translucent crisp that’s the test of any tempura kitchen.
Eating soba and udon side-by-side is the right call because you get the temperature contrast of cold-then-hot, plus two textures of noodle in one meal.
$23++ for both via the 1-for-1 deal is fair Japanese chain pricing — close to half off the full menu price.
Overall: 4.2 / 5. 😋👍🏼 Decent Japanese noodle lunch via the deal — would absolutely repeat.
