Trip to Odawara & Hakone (1) - Buckwheat noodle restaurant with good soymilk pudding

Last weekend, I went on a trip to Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture with my mother and sister. It was my sister who suggested this trip. She lives in Tokyo and could use the hotel owned by the ward where she lives in at a reasonable price. My mother and I took Shinkansen that left Hamamatsu at 11:23. We arrived at Odawara at 12:40, where my sister was waiting for us beyond the ticket gate.

First, we went to a buckwheat noodle restaurant Hashimoto near Odawara Castle. It is an old restaurant with history of 170 years.

I had a lunch set with cold noodles and grated yam rice. Like other restaurants, they used dried bonito broth for their sauce. When it is difficult to have vegetarian food when I go out with others, I eat meals containing fish or dried bonito broth sometimes. However, they had also this dessert, soymilk pudding with jam. This was included in my sister’s lunch set, but she doesn’t like sweets. So, she gave it to me.

In many Japanese restaurants, you can see a variety of dishware with different shapes and colors. Hashimoto is such a restaurant, and the soymilk pudding was served in a beautiful small bowl. It was so good that I wondered if it was possible to come to this restaurant just to eat this pudding. Since it is open from 11:00 to 19:00 or 18:00, you may be able to order it as an afternoon snack with buckwheat dumplings and drink. The buckwheat noodles I ate were very al dente and one of the best I have eaten. I hope they and other buckwheat restaurant will prepare also sauce for vegans someday by using shiitake mushroom or kelp.

Sobadokoro Hashimoto
Address: 1-13-37, Sakae-cho, Odawara-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture
Tel: 0465-22-5541
Open hours: 11:00 – 19:00 (Mon,, Tue., Thu., Fri., Sat.)
                   11:00 – 18:00 (Wed., Sun.)
Closed: January 1
Access: 7-minute walk from East Exit of JR Odawara Station