MOA Museum of Art in Atami (2) - Buckwheat noodles with vegan dipping sauce

After the lion dance performance, I went out of the building to have lunch. The museum has also a Japanese garden and restaurant. At the end of the path, there is a buckwheat noodle restaurant Nijoshinmachi Sobanobo (二條新町そばの坊).

It was a little over 11:00, and there were only several customers. Though I searched on the Internet in advance, I asked one of the staff members about menu items that didn’t contain dried bonito broth, explaining that I was a vegetarian. First, I had Shiratsuyu-zaru (白露ざる) or cold buckwheat noodles with dipping sauce flavored with kelp and salt. 

In fact, there was also ordinary dipping sauce flavored with dried bonito served together. The waitress recommended me to use it after eating noodles with the kelp-flavored dipping sauce for a while. Maybe she wanted me to enjoy the taste of buckwheat noodles themselves first with lightly flavored sauce and then the taste with sauce of stronger flavor. I thanked her but didn’t touch the second sauce.

I ate buckwheat noodles with kelp-flavored dipping sauce for the first time in my life because most buckwheat noodle restaurants have only dried bonito-flavored one. I put grated radish and seven-spice raw chili pepper served on a small plate into it. Even with these, the taste of the sauce was much lighter compared with bonito-flavored one. I could surely focus on and enjoy the texture of noodles that was moderately firm. 

As a dessert, I had soba-dango (そば団子) or buckwheat dumplings. They were browned and good. 

After I had lunch, I strolled in the garden. 

It seemed to be warmer in Atami than in Hamamatsu. I found plum blossoms that have come into bloom.

There was also a bamboo forest. 

Though MOA Museum of Art has a rich collection of art, I was impressed as much as by natural beauty of the surroundings. After fully enjoyed the museum, I took the long escalators again down to the entrance, visited the souvenir shop outside, and took a bus to the train station. I had another place to visit in the afternoon and took a train going westward.