There is a type of noodle in Japan called Somen. It’s made from wheat and it is the thinnest noodle eaten in Japan.
Now, if you are interested, there is a subset of this noodle called, Hiyamugi. Also made from wheat, apparently it’s pretty rare. And even more rare are restaurants that serve Hiyamugi noodles. Luckily, we stumbled upon a store that specializes in making it in Kitami! Which is a town in the eastern section of Hokkaido.
How did it taste? AMAZING! Much better than I expected. Can I say the noodles were very… smooth. The soup broth they use is also specially made by the store, making it even better! At this particular store, you could choose the portion size of the noodles as regular or large with no extra cost (which is always great!).
In addition, they have a variety of tempura, kind of like deep fried ingredients to add to your noodles, such as chicken and onion rings. Since the town Kitami is famous for growing onions, we chose to add onion rings to our meals. There was not a single regret.
Ohh, actually we did have one regret. They do have on the menu, a literal tower of onion rings. Of course, anybody who likes onion rings would throw their cash at the prospect of a tower of onion rings. Unfortunately, on that day we arrived around 1pm, just after general lunch time; and the tower of onion rings were sold out for the day… (Yes you did read correctly! SOLD OUT! In popular restaurants in Japan, sometimes they just sell out of particular things. It’s just a thing here unfortunately, nothing you can do about it except wallow in your regret that you didn’t wake up and arrive to the restaurant a little earlier!)
Anyways, if you are ever venturing to Kitami, or just passing through it on your travels, (and you like noodles!) would definitely recommend checking out this store. You have to be careful though, the store is only open to dine in about 4 days a week. The other 3 days, you can purchase some uncooked Hiyamugi noodles and other ingredients from the vending machine outside the store, however you can’t sit in and eat. We took a picture of their sign, so you can see the dates and times open at the bottom.
They may change depending on national holidays or the time of the year, so you can also check out their schedule on their website here
As shown below, scroll down to the calendar section and you can see the dates they are open, as well as the times they are open until!
You can change to English if you need in the top right hand corner of the screen, and there should be a menu on the website as you scroll down to make your mouth water~
The address is here: 26-26 Toyochi, Kitami City, Hokkaido 099-1587
If you key it into google, you will definitely find it. Also, they have a few places you can park your car, located with blue squares on the picture below. The orange square shows where the vending machine should be if you are going on a day where they are closed:
That’s all for today on this special noodle store in the middle of nowhere! If you end up visiting here drop a comment to let others know if you enjoyed it or not 🙂