01 / ABOUT THE PLACE
About this place
Come for a generous lunch of two portions of soba, or spend the evening over drinks and small dishes before finishing with noodles. Benkei Sendagi brings together the pleasures of a soba shop and an izakaya in one place.
Cold soba comes as mori or zaru soba, as well as in a three-colour combination of Sarashina soba, rustic soba and Chinese-style noodles. The standard serving is two portions, but you can choose one or one and a half if you want less. There is also the option of switching the noodles to Chinese-style noodles or rustic soba. Whether you like to tuck into a hearty bowl or compare different kinds of noodles, there is a choice to suit. Diners who have tried the cold soba have commented on its firm texture, how easily they finished even two portions, and the generous size and crisp finish of the tempura. Choose tenzaru for soba with tempura, then round off the meal with soba-yu, the hot water used to cook the noodles.
At lunchtime, rice-bowl sets are another option. Choices include oyakodon with soba, as well as a weekday special available until 14:00: your choice of soba with a changing rice bowl. This makes it easy to choose according to your appetite and mood. One diner who ordered the changing tuna bowl with soba recalled the bowl topped with chopped pickled ginger and found the soba dipping sauce a little sweet.
In the evening, you can wait for your soba while sharing sashimi and fried dishes. One diner enjoyed sashimi, an omelette with butterbur shoots and bamboo shoots, a seven-piece kushikatsu platter and mackerel sushi, then ordered both zaru soba and kake soba to finish. Another remembered the tenderness of the whale tatsuta-age. There are plenty of ways to build an evening around small plates, rather than making soba the whole meal. The sake list includes labels from different regions and made in different styles, such as the yamahai junmai Yuki no Bosha from Akita and the junmai nama genshu Kakurei from Niigata. Soba shochu and barley shochu are also included on the all-you-can-drink menu, and one diner mentioned enjoying soba-yu wari, shochu mixed with soba cooking water. From a soba-centred lunch to an evening pairing drinks with small dishes, you can choose how much to eat and how to spend your time.
