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📍Reiwa Soba Honten
🍜 Reiwa Pork Soba ($12)

I’ve been WFH since the lockdown last year so I haven’t been able to drop by @reiwasoba.sg at their location in Kelantan Road. To my delight, @reiwasoba.honten opened an air-conditioned izakaya with minimalist Muji vibes right next to Bedok Reservoir a while back! My friends and I made an impromptu visit there for dinner just last weekend.

If you’re making a random visit without seeing reviews from others, it’d probably be tough to decide what to order. The menu offers a list of food items and a short description, without any visual guidance. Knowing that their pork soba was a must-try, I had my heart set on it & my companions followed along!

The freshly-made buckwheat soba has a really nice bite to it and the pork slices were a tad hard to chew on although they were thinly-cut slices.

What makes their soba stand out from others in Singapore is their dipping sauce! Instead of the usual tsuyu dipping sauce, Reiwa Soba serves it with a dashi made out of chicken, fish and seaweed that’s mixed with chilli oil!

The chilli oil added just a nice hint of spice to the salty dashi mix, which the soba noodles soaked up well🤤 no complaints except that the dipping sauce tasted bland towards the end. Could be that the ice/water from the noodles ended up diluting it towards the end of the meal.

I know it’s an izakaya but there was a larger group of men enjoying their drinks while we ate, which made it hard for my friends and I to catchup and truly enjoy our meal because the place was so small and the sound echoed off the walls so loudly.

Would I return? Yes definitely, I thought the food was authentic yet reasonably priced for the quality and serving portions, but I’d time my visit earlier on in the day instead.