Amimoto Oba

Rating: OK
Meal:  Lunch for 3
Price:  4000 yen
Payment:  Cash only
Dishes:  Cold soba and tempura teishoku, gyudon, katsudon, sausages
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: No

We took my mother out to Hakone yesterday and found a spot to eat lunch.  Amimoto Oba is a soba/udon restaurant right on Lake Ashinoko.   Beautiful views of the surrounding mountains, swan boats, and the occasional pirate ship ferry that goes from one end of the lake to the other were on display.

Sausages

My mother had expressed an interest in cold noodles, so she got a cold soba with tempura teishoku.  It came with small fish, presumably fished out from the lake, and some vegetable tempura.  The fish was meant to be eaten whole and was fine I guess.  The rest of the dish was pretty much what you'd expect.  I got a gyudon (beef bowl) and my wife got a katsudon (deep fried pork cutlet bowl).  Both came with the usual slightly sweet egg and onion mixture that you'd expect, and both were quite tasty.  I wanted a little more protein as I did not eat most of my rice, so I ordered a sausage plate which was quite tasty with a mixture of various types of German style sausages.

Soba tempura set

We decided on a high Ok rating for this place as it wasn't really a standout place, but it was overall quite delicious.

Gyudon

Katsudon

Sobakko

Rating: Nasty

Meal:  Lunch
Price:  750 yen
Payment:  Cash only
Dishes: Cold soba with mountain yam, kimchi, egg and one shrimp tempura
English Menu: No

Smoking: Not while I was there, but possibly

Another Kenritsudaigaku review, Sobakko was pretty terrible.  The shrimp tempura was one of the grossest things I have ever eaten at a Japanese restaurant.  Then I mixed up the ingredients and tried to eat the soba with the slimy mountain yam and it just tasted...terrible.  I realized as I faced the prospect of trying to eat this grossness that I didn't actually have to eat it, and shameful though it was, I said thank you very much and left to find something else to eat for lunch.

I guess it's possible I just didn't do a good job picking my dish, but ultimately that doesn't matter.  These reviews are based on my experience eating there, and if it's bad, unless there are serious mitigating circumstances, that's how I'm going to call it.

Tamagawa

Rating: Very good
Meal: Dinner
Price: 3200 yen
Payment: Cash only
Dishes: Cold soba with tempura, maguro sushi, hot sake
English Menu: No
Smoking:  Not sure...I didn't see any ashtrays, but smelled smoke at one point...

Another Kenritsudaigaku station area review, Tamagawa is probably the nicest looking restaurant in the area.  It's very Japanese, serving soba and udon dishes, along with the usual sushi, tempura and various dishes on rice.  It is a nice, wide-open space and once inside you realize it's not as fancy as the outside appears.

Hot sake and free stewed daikon

I got some hot sake as it was freaking cold outside, and that was very nice.  As I ordered, I wanted to some meat, so I got the maguro sushi dish, and then realized I probably wouldn't be eating the rice, so I got a tempura cold soba set too.  This was way too much food, and each one was a meal in itself.  But it was all very good and I enjoyed it.

Maguro sushi

Cold soba and tempura set

Genbu

Rating: Very good
Meal: Lunch
Price:  2000 yen
Payment: Cash only (I think)
Dishes:  Cold soba and tempura, plus an order of gobo tempura
English Menu: No
Smoking: Maybe in the evening, not at lunch

For lunch today I tried out a nice looking Soba/Tempura restaurant across from Torigin.  Someone told me they are both owned by the same group.  The place was pretty hopping when I got there but I snagged a seat at the counter.  The menu is all in Japanese, but there are pictures.  I had a hankering for cold soba so I ordered a set with tempura.  Then I saw that they had gobo tempura and I had to order one.

 
The food was all quite tasty and well made.  None of the tempura had the heavy, oily taste of substandard places.  The soba was nice and chewey too.  This place is definitely in the upper tier of soba spots in Yokosuka I believe.

Kanun

Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner
Price: 1600 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Duck and cold soba
English Menu: Yes
Smoking: Yes

I like cold soba.  I dislike hot soba, and I dislike udon in general.  Well...dislike is a bit of a harsh term..it's not my preference, but I'll eat it.  Heck I ate a hot soba dish I bought from 7-11 this morning (it was frozen, just reheat on the stove) for lunch.  You can usually get cold soba from any old Japanese restaurant, but some places specialize in the stuff.  Kanun is a soba/udon restaurant right on Blue Street between the HAC drugstore and the Bank of Yokohama.  It's down some stairs, but not all the way to the bottom, that's some izakaya chain.

Surprisingly their English menu is well written and lacking in the entertaining mistakes of some other places.  Other than an abbreviated drink section (they have way more than hot or cold sake), it seemed to match up to the Japanese menu pretty much.  I saw a duck soba dish and thought that sounded interesting so I got it.

It was ok I guess...the broth was actually hot though, which I was a bit disappointed by.  The noodles were cold though but when dipped they warmed up.  I don't know what it is but I much prefer soba noodles cold.  Something happens to the texture when they warm up.  Anyway, the duck itself was eh...I guess I don't love duck?  Oh well, it was something different and interesting for that.  Overall it wasn't spectacular but just ok.