🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi, we can hardly wait for your NoodleReport, Dave...

santos@mickey.ai.kyutech.ac.jp (Rafael &) writes:
> I am looking forward to see the NoodleReport, too. Hope it says something 
> about the hot ones, too.

    Me too, but let's enjoy our talk first.

> Here is the question: which is the difference ?
> So far, I know only Sou-men (liked it), Zaru-Soba, Zaru-Udon, Lamen, 
> hiyashi-chuuka (sp?). I believe that the Zaru-* are the same as the Hiyashi-*,
> is it right ? Well, all of the cold ones tasted better with some shoyu and 
> wasabi.

    First, we make distinction between the type of noodles.
I exclude so-called western pastas, e.g. spaghetti; Japanese
noodle only (but Chuuka-men's origin is China of course).
    
    a. Soba ---  Brown coloerd noodles, made from soba plant.
    b. Chuuka-men --- Yellow coloerd noodles == c + something.
    c. Others --- White coloerd, made from flowers.
     c1.  Sou-men --- Very thin, under 1mm diameter profile.
     c2.  Hiya-mugi --- Thin, around 1mm diameter profile.
     c3.  Kisi-men  --- Flat profile.
     c4.  Udon --- Anything except c1-c3.

And then hot or cold.  Some are served in both hot or cold form,
ther others not.  Let's start from the cold ones, for our summer.

    Cold a. zaru-soba or mori-soba -- but I can't explain the
               difference between zaru and mori.   Anybody knows?
    Cold b. hiyashi-chuuka or hiyasi-lamen.
    Cold c1. sou-men.
    Cold c2. hiya-mugi.
    Cold c4. hiyasi-udon or zaru-udon.  I admit hiyasi- and zaru-
                meens same thing in this case.

I don't know about cold kisi-men.  Then let's proceed to the hot
ones.

    Hot a. soba, or kake-soba.
    Hot b. lamen.
    Hot c2. kisi-men.
    Hot c3. udon, or kake-udon.

But this is not the end.  Kake-udon or kake-soba means "plain-",
and if we add extra foods onto them, their name changes.

    Tsukimi-soba/udon : with raw eggs.
    Kitsune-soba/udon : with age (thin piece of flied tofu).
    Tempra-soba/udon  : with templa.

These are only examples, there are so many others I thought.
Well, I now recognized that explaining Japanese foods in English
is so difficult.  I'm longing for the coming NoodleReport really.

> And, if somebody can, a SakeReport will be very good... :) :) 

    Oh great!  Anyone?   And how about DonburiReport?

							Yasushi Kuno