Inaniwa Udon·Nabe Japanese Restaurant    稻庭烏冬·鍋物日本餐廳  

Inaniwa Udon Nabe Japanese restaurant provides Japan's exclusive handmade Sato Yosuke Udon (VII generation) which originated from Akita, Japan. It was regarded as an item of supremacy served only to nobles and the royal family before the middle of Meiji period. With an accreditation that good, it would be a sin to give it a miss!

P.S: Due to limitations on photo uploads, do visit our blog for full set of pictures!

Beef Shabu Shabu - Japanese Supreme Wagyu Beef ($1,180/-)With the addition of the broth, let the Shabu Shabu experience begins!The staffs approached us and asked if we wanted a top up of rice with some spring onions and yolk to make a separate rice dish with the broth from the Shabu Shabu.With the adding of the broth, the server constantly stirred the cooked rice around with the yolk and spring onions until the broth became thick and viscous.The end product was somewhat like risotto, but a softer and mashy version. Surprisingly, it tasted really good, absorbing the essence from the Wagyu beef and the various vegetables cooked.

Cold Inaniwa Udon ($128/-)The beautifully arranged udon were complemented with 3 separate dressings, from left Onsen Tamago Sauce, Duck Sauce and Tororo (Mountain Yam Sauce). Each was distinctly different from the other and flavoursome to say the least. The Onsen Tamago Sauce provided a layer of gluten from the egg yolk which helped enhanced the smoothness of the udon. The Duck Sauce was strong and 'meaty' in flavours while the Tororo Sauce was rich but the taste was rather indistinct.

The udon was cooked to a perfect al dente. Texture wise, it was very smooth and went down well with the diners' palates. On the downside, the noodles were sticking together pretty much and it took some effort to loosen them for the sauce dip.

Supreme Wagyu Beef Salad ($198/-)A refreshing tang to the salad helped titillate one's taste buds. The salad was crisp and fresh and the thinly sliced Wagyu beef was well seasoned which gave the light salad its flavours.

Chicken wings stuffed with Mentaiko ($78/-)This was an interesting rendition to the usual stuffed chicken wings. Mentaiko is the marinated roe of pollock and cod and it introduced a varied texture to the chicken wings. Wrapped delicately underneath the skin, the wings were grilled beautifully with a savoury marinade.

Japanese Minced Chicken with Yolk ($98/-)The sauce was viscous and rich and dominating in flavour such as that of teriyaki marinade. The minced chicken was moist and juicy on the inside and the yolk dip was a divine combination.

Grilled Chicken - Salted ($52/-)While we enjoyed the succulent, soft and moist chicken pieces, it was way too salty for our liking. The grill work was perfectly done, retaining sufficient moisture to ensure that the chicken chunks were juicy to the bite. It was good enough for us to order a second serving, but we told them to reduce the salt content and it was alot more palatable.

Squid Cake ($78/-)The texture was slightly chewy with pieces of diced squids and shredded carrots. It had a beautiful grill tan on the surface which was crisp to the bite and pleasing to the eyes. On the inside, it was moist and you could almost taste the freshness of the minced squid.

稲庭烏冬專門店;
亦有多款鍋物;
環境寬敞服務沒問題;
但烏冬處理方法不好及醬汁太淡。
有很大的改善空間。

Inaniwa Udon specialist shop;
Also serves many different types of hotpots;
Spacious decor, Good service;
However, very bland sauce for the undon;
Tempura was too oily;
Pricey.
Significant improvement required.



Inaniwa Udon:

Inaniwa Udon 稲庭うどん　is one of the top three types of udon in Japan, the other two being Sanuki udon (讃岐うどん　thickest) and Mizusawa udon (水沢うどん　somewhere between Inaniwa udon and Sanuki but I haven't tried this before). Inaniwa Udon is handmade and then dried like most Chinese noodle cakes. It is said that Inaniwa Udon was invented in the Inaniwa village by Mr. Sato Yousuke （佐藤養助）　sometime in the 16th century.

This shop states that they use Inaniwa Udon from the Yousuke family, who still handmade the undon using a secret formula passed down from generation to generation. Sounded pretty promising so we came here to try it out.

Decor:

The place had a really high ceiling and widely spaced out tables. It seemed fairly similar to Kurotake at the World Trade Centre:Nice, quiet and comfortable.



Menu:

The nicely designed menu was in Chinese, English and Japanese with good introductions to Akita （秋田県）prefecture, different types of nabe and Inaniwa udon.

They served a decent selection of appetizers, a small selection of robotayaki, salad, different types of nabe (hotpot) and of course, their signature dish, Inaniwa udon:We ordered a tomato salad, fried squid cake, a cold inaniwa udon with three different types of sauces and a tempura inaniwa set.



Squid cake:We initially thought that this nicely named dish "Gomoku Ikaage" was going to be something special; however, when it arrived (within 5 minutes after we placed our order), it was just a very normal squid fish cake you can get in any Japanese supermarket. Specialists fish cake shop like "Kibun" in the food court at TST SOGO sell much better ika age.

It's only lukewarm and the ginger must have been place in open air for too long, which really affected the taste significantly. As to the squid cake itself, the sweet shreds of carrots, spring onions and small amount of vegetables could not cover the staleness of the squid cake. It did not taste very fresh.

Tomato salad:

This arrived a minute after the squid cake:Served with a small pot of ponzu and light soy sauce mixture.

The tomatoes were quite fresh and sweet. Pouring the sauce over what seemed to be rocket leaves and the Japanese tomatoes really enhanced the dish.

This was the best part of the meal...



Seiro 3 flavours - HK$138:According to the menu, the three different types of sauces for you to dip the cold Inaniwa udon into were (from left to right): Tororo (i.e. mountain yam sauce), Duck sauce and Onsen tamago sauce.

Unfortunately, all three types of sauce weren't good.

Tororo sauce: The tororo was not thick enough. The pathetic amount of nori "dusts" did not help the taste at all. The soy sauce used in the sauce barely had any soy sauce taste. Because of its texture, it's very hard for the sauce to cling on to the udon.

Duck sauce: According to the website of Sato Yousuke, the godfather of Inaniwa Udon, this sauce should be called "sesame miso". That seemed more accurate as we could not sense any duck taste in this "duck sauce" but we could feel traces of pork bone soup with a very strong sesame taste. Since the sauce was heavily diluted, it couldn't really cling on to the udon as well.

Onsen Tamago sauce: Again, this was too light for our tastes. It tasted like diluted light Japanese soy sauce with a runny egg yoke inside the pot. Mixing the egg did practically nothing to the sauce as the egg taste was weak.

Because of the odd tastes of all three sauces, my wife could not finish her udon.



Tempura set:My set came with a pot of tsuyu, a small plate which contained ginger, sesame and spring onions and two prawns tempura and one piece of egg plant.

The first thing I noticed was that I wasn't provided with either salt or special tsuyu for tempura. I am trying not to be too nitpicking here, but I believe if the sauce is for the udon, then it should not be for the tempura. To use an extreme example, chili soy sauce maybe good with your steamed prawns but not so good if you use it to steam fish.

Anyway, I found that the sauce was suitable for neither items. It had the same problem with the other three sauces - too bland. It's even worse than the sauce at Kurotaki. The oxidized grated ginger, spring onions and sesame seeds did nothing to enhance the taste. Very disappointing.

As you could see from the photo, the tempura batter was spread in a highly uneven manner. It was thick at the lower part but very thin on top.

Judging from the how odd the batter was, the batter was either too watery or that the oil used wasn't hot enough. It might be both. The batter was crunchy but very oily. I have to say I was expecting a lot more than this for my Tempura set which cost me more than HK$138.

Having said that, at least the prawn had some prawn taste. It wasn't too bad. Same with the nasu (eggplant), not exceptional but no complaints.



Inani...What!? udon?!

Finally, a few words about the udon:



Seiro literally means a basket used for steaming. Seiro Inaniwa udon means cold udon served on such a basket. It's supposed to be double the size of the bamboo container used here. I hope this spark of creativity in Hong Kong is not simply a cost cutting exercise or an attempt to cut down the servings. You'll have already noticed that the seiro is much bigger in the clip above. The bundle of udon appeared to be somewhat more substantial as well but that may be my imagination. The colour of the Inaniwa udon in the video was silk-like, shiny and almost transparent!

Compare the above to this:To be fair, the taste of the udon was acceptable. It's chewier than sanuki udon and rather smooth. However, I've definitely had much better Inaiwa udon elsewhere in Hong Kong. For a shop that sells such high quality Inaiwa udon, their level of execution is surprisingly low.

The udon shown on the photo above was the left over Inaniwa udon in my wife's set. She couldn't finished it despite her best efforts. In order not to waste food, I had the unsavory task to finish this unsavory, sticky and messy pile of udon. Mine wasn't as silky or shiny as the clip above but was still better than my wife's udon - at least those I had wasn't glued together.

I believe the udons were overcooked and not tossed properly enough before putting it into ice and rising it in ice cold water. Significant improvement is definitely required!



Udon specialist?!:

The servers were reasonably polite and quite efficient.
Nice, spacious decor.
The sauce for the Inaniwa udon were all bland.
Oily tempura.

However, we will not rule out another visit to this place to try out their nabe.

Inaniwa udon: Not recommended.

This is a very busy restaurant and if you would like to make reservations, you could only do 6:30pm or before. Anytime after that, you would have to queue up.

This place is renounce for it's udon. We ordered the cold udon with 3 different sources. The udon is delicious and tastes so well with the difference dipping source.

We also ordered the Japanese Beef Sukiyaki. Very generous servicing with the beef and also the vegetables. The waitress cooked the vegetables for us at our table and we cooked the beef ourselves.

Definitely value for money!

We have 6 people together for dinner before going to concert at Asia Expo, heard that this Japanese restaurant is very popular and always have queue out there. We went there early at around 6:30pm and was too happy to get a seat.

I like noodle and have high expectation when I go there. Environment is not bad, seating area is comfortable. Menu is simple, not many choices and thought it must be good quality and finely selected to serve.

I ordered the Pork with Tomato 豚肉番茄Udon in 猪骨汤， it looks alright, but really no surprise. Just simple udon in soup with few slice of pork and tomato, soup is so so, kind of quick cooking and nothing fine.

One friend ordered the cold udon, and found that there is hair in one of the three sauces....yikes

Once we reported to the waiter, they gave us changed to another type of noddle, but afterwards, everyone was so alert of our bowls. Understood that it's accident, careless mistake, but for what they are charging, this kind of careless mistake is not acceptable.

The tempura udon is not bad, with 2 pieces of shirmp tempura.

The fried chicken is the star of the night, we order 2 rounds, it's so delicious with nicely fried skin and juicy meat. The sauce is a perfect match as well.

Greenbeans are too cold to serve, it's just being taken out from a fridge

My other friedns order different types of cold udon, just ok.

Overall, the food quality is just so so, if it's half price of what they are charging, no complain. However, for this price range, I don't think they worth. For me, just once is enough.

For a family dinner I picked this restaurant as Elements is accessible and is one of the better restaurants in Elements. It was a Monday and we were seated in one of the rooms for more privacy (not that we needed it, we were only five!).

soy milk hot pot set ($160x2)
hot pot set is listed on the menu as $160 per person but since minimum order is two, the minimum charge is $320. The set came with a plate of assorted vegetables and a plate of assorted seafood/meats. we also decided to add another plate of seafood ($95), cabbage ($15) and shimeji mushroom ($12).

Soup base of soy milk was milky white and wasn't pure soy as I imagined it might be. There's definitely some dashi in there since it had the 'umami' taste - pretty enjoyable.
The plates that came with the set included Japanese sliced pork loin, clams, salmon, and in the bamboo stick is some minced chicken, which you slide cuts of into the boiling pot. Also a plate of vegetables, including cabbage, Japanese bean curd skin, black fungus, fresh and enoki mushrooms.

Our added plate of seafood had two large prawns, scallops, salmon and some shellfish.

As the broth got evaporated or divided into bowls the waiters refilled the pot with stock. ingredients on the whole were fresh, particularly memorable were the broth, minced chicken and the slippery smooth bean curd skin (really different in texture to ones we get locally), as well as the large prawns. 7.5/10

Inaniwa udon in hot soup with Hokkaido crab meat ($108)
The broth is very thick, so we were warned. come to think of it, it may have been the enoki mushrooms that made the broth become so viscous, rather than some form of starch being added. i like thin and slightly thickened soups so I quite liked this. There wasn't much crab meat to justify the extra $4x, but price aside the noodles were really good - thin, slippery and slightly chewy - my favourite! 7.5/10

Inaniwa Udon in Tomato and Pork Bone Broth with Japanese Pork ($108)
The udon noodles were again good, though I didn't care for this broth. I was expecting something heartier but all this was was sour tomatoes and sliced pork in a broth which tasted very pedestrian. for me the noodles didn't match the broth at all. (ps. very subjective, because dad clearly liked this bowl of noodles better than the crab meat one above). 5/10

Inaniwa Udon in Hot Soup with Prawn Tempura ($108)
This would probably be my favourite style of serving these udon noodles - in a very simple Japanese shoyu-based stock. I know that the best way to enjoy these noodles are probably having them served cold and you dip them in the sauce/broth, but I much prefer hot soup noodles, so provided you don't let the noodles sit so long in the broth, the texture of the udon remains intact (read: eat quickly!). the tempura shrimps were crunchy, but then again they were quite small and I'm not sure whether it justifies $48... I loved these noodles so much I just might have to go back soon and be open-minded about trying their cold varieties! 8.5/10

Homemade Squid cake ($65)
a must order - i don't think i've had anything like this before, and these slices of squid cake were bouncy and had tiny bits of squid meat for a variation of texture. seasoned very well too, so no sauce was needed. 8/10

Cheese Rice Cake ($48)
these cute little rounds of mochi had a molten cheese centre, and were crispy on the outside, whilst the mochi layer was hot and only slightly chewy, the cheese melted easily in the mouth. they were fried really well to achieve the crispy exterior minus the oily/greasy taste. after a plate we decided we needed another one too =P 8.5/10

if i remember correctly everything was polished off! we all really enjoyed this meal.... i wonder when my next visit will be?

For original post with more pictures: http://gastronomerr.blogspot.com/2010/09/inaniwa-udon-nabe.html

Had lunch on Saturday. Arrived at about 1:45p.m. No need to wait.

日式eel煎蛋卷 ($48): only very small pieces of eel in the middle. four pieces. taste soso. the egg roll came after 2-3 minutes after we ordered. wondered if it was freshly made.

赤豚肉蕃茄豬骨熱湯稻庭 $108: the pork is very fat and thin. tomato soup is quite good. the udon is very smooth. but not as chewy as the cold one.

地鷄南蠻汁冷稻庭 $85: the sauce is very salty. there were more mushroom than chicken. the texture and taste of the chicken (free range?) was quite good. the cold udon was the best thing there. However, i don't really understand why the cold udon should be put in such hot sauce. It became hot udon?

Overall, the udon is ok but too expensive. there is a little insect flying around our food. very annoying. my friend killed it as last. don't understand why it can fly in a restraunt in a shopping mall!

the beef sashimi is great
the grill ox intestine is great as well
the chicken sabusabu is OK
the oyster of the seafood sabusabu set, is very fresh and nice
First time to try duck breast for pot .. impressive
the room is nice, a really good gathering place

If anyone recalls my last two Udon-related reviews, I briefly made an inference that none of the newer Udon shops in Hong Kong are going to be Top Tier Udon Representatives of its kind - despite most owners trying hard to pass them off as "Udon Specialty Shops!". Let's elucidate the line of thought which previously crossed my mind first, before arriving at your own conclusion!

As we know, there do exist so many 和式 Japanese noodle shops in Japan already, these comprising of Soba, Udon and Kishimen houses, etc on top of Ramen shops. In total, their numbers run into the Tens of Thousands and have infiltrated every corner and train stations. The logic runs likes this - just because there are 40,000 or so dedicated Sushi Specialty Shops and just as many Japanese Noodles Shops, does that automatically mean they're ALL great Sushi or Noodles restaurants? Obviously not. So in terms of 麺屋's, how can customers go about sorting out the ordinary everyday Soba or Udon noodles from the real Jewel of the Crown? The 1st obviously clue is easy, a tag which roughly translates as a '超新鮮, 本地手打' part of the equation, a guarantee that the noodles you will devour are Artisanally prepared daily and served fresh, rather than previously dried or stored in the fridge/pre-frozen during transporation. When it comes to 稻庭烏冬 however, it becomes even more complicated, as despite being Hand-Made rather than Machine-Mass-produced, Inaniwa Noodles are traditionally prepared DRIED '乾' rather than fresh, for purposes of lasting over the cold Winter months!

On the above '新鮮, 本地手打' prerequisite alone, most of the so-called, Local Specialty Udon shops already fail the basic level of filtering out the wheat from the chaff!: 富久保手打烏冬 passes. 自家烏冬 is machine-made but at least made fresh locally. 野姜 or some other shops have 手打烏冬 but they're Japan imported. Here at 稻庭, it passes because Inaniwa noodle are meant to be imported 'Dried'.

Which comes to the next point. At the fresh, Artisanal Hand-Prepared Noodle shops, the general best way to present the Soba or Udon noodles to the customer is to prepare the noodles in a 'Cold state' rather than having the batch of noodles sitting in a Hot Soup or in a Nabe Hotpot (available here) during which the residual boiling and soup's high heat make them lose its Al Dente consistency during the meal and 2ndly, drown away the delicate noodle's wheat taste. Its similar in concept to 中國's撈麵, and is especially the case with Thinner noodle strands such as the Inaniwa noodles and Kishimen noodles - afterall, its ABOUT RESPECTING THE NOODLE. That is how stubborn the Top Japanese noodle makers and customers mutually must treat the Artisanal products and this strict adherence is what makes them all the more delectable! I'm sure we've also heard of stories of how noodle makers insist on using Feet Pressure (足打ち) to finish off the dough and the 'natural sensitivity and intuition' required by the chefs to adjust the formulas according to the Temperature, Proportions and Types of Salt, Water and Wheat Flour to ensure a consistent product! And this leads to my 3rd and most pertinent point: How many ways can we eat the noodles in its Cold, most preferred form? ^_^'

In Summery months, we can eat the artisinal noodles as Zaru (ざる) or Steam Basket (せいろ) style and dip it into cold 'tsuyu based' broths, or have them served in a Cold Soup (冷やかけ) style. Other times you may keep the noodles cold but eat it with various additional cold or warm toppings known as an Bukkake (ぶっ掛け) style. So far, most of these mentioned eating styles are already covered in Hong Kong udon shops.

But what will happen during the colder months, when the stubborn noodle-makers and customers still NEED to respect these Hand-Made Noodles and eat them in their best 'cold' state, yet at the same time satisfy our own desires of wanting to keep warm during winter?

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烏冬 (冷) + 雞肉南蠻汁 (熱) -

Surprisingly and as far as I know, all of the other so-called Udon Specialty Shops in Hong Kong do not offer a つけうどん (Tsuke Udon) on their menus - even though this is almost without-fail available at top artisanal udon, soba or kishimen shops in Japan! If you don't believe me - just go check out the other shops the next time you dine out. Although so far a few people in their reviews here have taken for granted and automatically labelled this as yet another 冷烏冬 dish - in reality, its presence on a 'noodle shop's menu' can be highly symbolic of how serious of what the shop is trying to achieve.... at least that's what flashed across my mind when I saw and ordered this from the menu.

When the 雞肉南蠻汁 arrived together with the COLD Inaniwa Noodles (remember: in the wrong せいろ tray ), my anticipation was running abnormally high as this eating method of Dipping Cold Noodles into a Hot Soup is the epitome of eating artisanal noodles in months other than Summer. YET - the 'broth' that I received that night was barely luke-warm rather than a hot soup, my estimate is that it reachd at most 45C!

The Chicken Meat and Shiitake mushroom pieces were quite tasty to be fair, but from my point of view this was already a mistake no.1 by the shop and again, NOT RESPECTING THE NOODLES AND THE CUSTOMER. The cold noodles however just like my last dish were boiled then ice-bathed to perfection, with a strong wheat taste and gliding texture. Amazing!

So how does the shop and the customer usually finish off a つけうどん (Tsuke Udon) dish, may we ask? Well, usually the Japanese noodle makers are SO THOUGHTFUL OF MAKING THE WHOLE TRIP A TRANSCENDENTAL EXPERIENCE, they always make the Original Dipping Broth to be more stronger & salty so that when you dip the cold noodles in it, it shall carry the perfect brothy taste to accompany well with the plain udons! The 2nd part of the equation however is yet another important step as part the the Transcendental Experience - you see, this strong broth is also very delectable, but due to its 濃い character, the PROPER NOODLE SHOPS in Japan will either give you 蕎麦水 (for fresh made Sobas) or 溫水 (in Kichimen with Gingko based soup or Udon shops) automatically to 'dilute' the strongish 'tsuyu' broth first, before the customer will be told by the shop to appreciate the meticulously boiled broth/soup as a Complete Ending to the meal. The same applies to Shabu Shabu's strongish soup, when rice is sometimes added later into the strong soup to absorb and cancel out the concentrated flavours - or sometimes, water added to dilute the shabu's broth so that it can be down as normal soup.

Here at 稻庭 - not only was the Base of the Tsuyu broth already pre-made at the far-away Japanese noodle house rather than made in-store @ Elements (same as its imported noodles!), but no one had offered automatically to assist us to dilute the desirable broth into a great soup so we can finish the meal off authentically in the Japanese way, encouraging us to experience a high apprecation from the Start to the Finish. (I had to ask for some hot water myself and the staff members were entirely clueless and utterly shocked when I pourted this into my own Tsuyu Broth, inorder to dilute it into a drinkable soup.)

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ALL IN ALL - Although I actually quite enjoyed this meal on the whole and have already concluded that if there is a HK Udon shop which clearly stands above the competition, then this would be it, the overall mishaps here and there that ranged from - wrong serving container which doesn't reflect its 蒸籠 namesake, or the lukewarm Noodles Broth which should have been way hotter if not steaming hot, to the lack of understanding of how a Tsuke Udon should be eaten traditionally, also the careless mis-spellings on the last page of the Menu I was given - I could only arrive at an unfortunate conclusion: This is a Specialty Udon House operated by a HK Group which is exploiting the goodwill of the original 佐藤養助 noodles and broth, without putting Heart and Soul into the food and aiming at doing a 100% job, so as to ensure that each and every customer walking out of the shop afterwards would be 'wowed' by their Top Udon experience.

In a way, this reflects how Hong Kong people and businesses tend to work - its mostly leveraging off established brandnames and only cares about giving you barely 7-8/10 of the full-works and experience, as long as they could charge you the full premium price. It could easily have been a 10/10 experience with just a few adjustments and twitches, but they will never give it to you. As a thought, in the really great artisanal Japanese noodle houses that I was lucky enough to have visited a few years ago, this would never have been a problem, because from the Japanese owners point of view - their priority is always to satisfy the customer first using their own inhouse expectations, therefore the money would come rolling in. In Hong Kong however, its always just the other way around.

FOOD: MID- HIGH '4'
BUT COULD HAVE BEEN EASILY A MID-HIGH '5', IF THEY EVEN PAID A TAD MORE ATTENTION AND DECIDED TO PUT HEART INTO THE FOOD AND RESPECT THE CUSTOMERS AND THEIR 'NOODLES' AS A PRIORITY!!

I went there twice in a week for lunch. The food are very nice and very unique. They only provide 8 choices of lunch set, I think I prefer the

1. "Japanese Nanbu chicken hotpot with rice set" and
2. "Japanese Pork with Udon in Hot Tomato Soup".
3. "Shrimps Tempura with Cold Udon"

They are so GOOD!

average per person $110.

Operated by the HK Group which also manages 魚一丁, 和花亭, 赤丸製麵所, etc., their latest business venture 稻庭 sells Hotpot (鍋) items alongside their biggest attracting factor which is on theory so Tantalizing, it should jump straight up to the No.1 Top Spot on most people's Must-Try List!: the hot commodity in question is simply known as THE MOST ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC VERSION OF 秋田県's 稻庭乾烏冬, HAND MADE BY THE 7th GENERATION OF THE 佐藤養助 FAMILY.... Imported straight from the sale's door which once housed the original Inventor of the World Famous 稻庭烏冬, their Udon recipe is sworn to eternal Secrecy - this valuable intellectual asset passed down the generations within only approved members of the tiny family. Its almost as clichéd as a Hollywood film!
So how well will their noodles fare outside of its famous hometown, when its run under the operational umbrella of a foreign company and which the 佐藤 family has no direct business stake nor share a shop name association, the supplier's role merely limited to shipping consignments of dry noodles and carrying out irregular Quality Control checks?
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月見 TSUKUNE $58 (2 Skewers) -
This is the home-made minced Chicken and soft bone skewer, which is grilled and dipped into raw Japanes egg yolk before consumption. This was really great indeed with lots of detectable cartilage bones and chicken flavour, and one of the best versions locally! It could do with a slightly more sophisticated or even smoky sauce however!
SCORE - 4.2 / 5
せいろ三味 (溫玉醬汁,合鴨汁,山芋醬汁) -
On paper, this Cold Inaniwa Udon dish is a variation to the normal Zaru ざる version - but in reality the difference is mainly the better container it comes in. More on that later! The cold Inaniwa Noodles are greatly prepared, with noodles flavour and a perfectly chewy texture, and surprisingly a silkily smooth surface on each individual noodle strand - you really would be pushing your luck asking for more in this regards! The 3 types of sauces were good but not impressive, especially the 溫玉醬汁 being too abnormally weak. The 合鴨汁 is the most suitable for dipping your cold noodles into!
However, the narrow and cylindrical bamboo container that it came in wasn't 'authentic to the dish name', as it should be served in a hollowy and squarish steaming box, made of Timber and Bamboo lining. Similar to the one you steam Wagyu beef with... I personally think this wrong serving style did not RESPECT the Artisanal Noodles enough, as せいろ in Kanji is a 蒸龍 and if it ain't one, it shouldn't be named as such and fool the customers into believing that its something above the ubiquitous Zaru ざる version. It could easily 瞞天過海 if I wasn't paying attention and perhaps the little niggles here and there on that night which I had experienced here, convinced me to claim that so-far, there will be no Top Tier Udon shops in Hong Kong....
SCORE - 4.0 / 5

(To be continued.....)