My friend Etsuo recently suggested that we get together for dinner at Sunaba, one of his favorite soba restaurants. “We can have toshi-koshi soba,” he exclaimed, excitedly.

Ah, yes! Toshi-koshi soba, a serving of buckwheat noodles eaten at the end of the year. The noodles are symbolic in a couple of different ways. Soba noodles, being made of buckwheat, are firmer than other noodles, making them easy to bite in two. The biting of the noodles symbolizes bring an end to the old year, leaving behind whatever bad might have occurred in the year. Generally speaking, the long soba noodles are also a symbol of a long, healthy life (and for whatever reason, biting them in two doesn’t disrupt that symbolism).

Soba is served in a variety of ways, hot or cold and with various toppings. (For more about soba, have a look at this post that I wrote a few years ago.) There is no one kind of soba that is toshi-koshi soba, any kind you like will do. Toshi-koshi soba is more about the timing of the meal.

Sunaba, located a short walk from either Tokyo’s Toranomon or Toranomon Hills subway stations, is an interesting spot. It sits on corner in a building that was built at the end of 1923, just after the Great Kanto Earthquake. Yet, it is surrounded by gleaming modern high rise buildings (Toranomon Hills Business Tower is just across the street), making it look a little like Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.

A Tokyo restaurant in a hundred-year-old building is remarkable, but Sunaba has other noteworthy history as well. It began serving soba in Osaka while Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) was building Osaka Castle. Later, when political power shifted to Edo (now Tokyo), Sunaba shifted as well. It now operates two locations in Tokyo: Toranomon and Nihonbashi. They are obviously doing something right!

A decrepit-looking delivery bicycle leans again the guardrail outside the restaurant, a nod to the days when bicycles commonly delivered noodles around the city. (Somewhere I have a photo I took in 1980 of a delivery bicyclist balancing a tall stack of trays of noodles on one hand while steering his bicycle with the other.) The bicycle is just a prop and in no way reflects on the food that waits within. The inside is gleaming, well maintained but in the style of 1920s Japan. Although the second floor was closed during our visit, apparently has tatami-matted private rooms.

As we examined the menu, Etsuo confessed that his favorite dish at Sunaba was nabeyaki udon, a hearty bowl of fat udon noodles in broth with some vegetables, a tempura prawn and a raw egg. Since 2023 was a pretty good year for me anyway (so that I didn’t feel a strong urge to cut off negatives) and Etsuo made it sound so good, I decided to skip the toshi-koshi soba and go for the nabeyaki udon instead.

The meal was excellent! I was pleased with my choice. And I later learned that in some regions of Japan, the tradition is to eat the toshi-koshi soba just after new year’s, rather than just before, so there’s still a chance for me. In any event, there is a superstition that it is very bad luck to eat the noodles exactly at midnight, so I will avoid that.

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