👋 Haisai! I’m CULT.
How are you all? Today is the second instalment of our Okinawa restaurant introductions. This time, I visited a restaurant called Sososo (蕎蕎蕎) in the south, which serves zarusoba. There are very few places in Okinawa that specialise in zarusoba, so it’s a delightful menu option for someone like me living here. I really love zarusoba.
When I lived in Prague, I used to buy lots of zarusoba noodles during my trips to Japan and make them at home.

Since it’s one of my favourite dishes, if you’re planning to visit Okinawa World or the Gangara Valley in the south of Okinawa, I recommend considering a visit.

📌 Location and Appearance of the Restaurant

The restaurant is located in the southern part of Okinawa, so renting a car is practically essential. There are group tours that go by bus, but I’m not sure if you’ll have any free time. It is closed every Monday and Tuesday, and ⏰ the opening hours are from 11:30 AM to 4:00 PM.

This is what the exterior of the restaurant looks like.
Since there aren’t many large restaurants nearby, it’s conveniently located for those touring Okinawa World or Gangara Valley to have a meal here. While it’s not overly crowded, there is still a waiting list. If you enter the restaurant and there are no available seats, you can write your name on a piece of paper and wait.

This is the interior of the restaurant. I roughly counted about six tables. Since the place is small, it seems waiting is inevitable. There’s nothing particularly special, and if you wait a moment, a staff member will bring you the menu.

We ordered two servings of zaru soba. One was the regular zaru soba, and the other was zaru soba with tempura.
At the time, I was saving money for visiting popular eateries, but now I can spend more freely, so future posts about eateries will be richer. Anyway, the name of the dish we ordered is Tempura Seiro Soba (天盛りせいろ蕎麦). I think the price of 2,200 yen is a bit expensive.

First, here is the dipping sauce for zarusoba.
Japanese people will be familiar with this, and many Koreans might know it too. However, people from Europe or English-speaking countries might not be aware of it. It’s a concept where you dip the noodles in soy sauce, rather than mixing pasta with the sauce. Think of it as having the pasta and sauce separately.

🍤 Tempura Seiro Soba

These are large tempura pieces. Originally, Okinawa is known for its many famous fried food restaurants, isn’t it? I’ll continue to introduce such places to you.

If you ask for scissors, you can borrow them for a moment. Use the scissors to cut the fried food and share it with your companions. This is a bit different from Japanese culture, and it’s not commonly done in Western countries either, is it? In Korea, sharing food like this is a common practice.

This is the complete view. You dip the side on the right into the soy sauce on the left before eating.

You can enjoy it like in the photo. I really like this.
With zarusoba, it’s important to cook the noodles and drain them well, which requires a lot of know-how. Personally, when I make it at home, it took many attempts to make a reasonably tasty zarusoba. Still, zarusoba is definitely… best enjoyed when bought. 🥰

We finish off with some fried dishes. As expected, they are delicious.
I’ll keep it short today. I’m currently preparing a new page, where I’ll be organising and uploading an Okinawa restaurant map in different languages. I’ve got a busy schedule with shoots over the weekend, but I’ll try to sort it out and let you know as soon as possible.
There’s already a lot of restaurant information on my NAVER blog, and I’ll be organising and introducing each one to help with your Okinawa travels. I’ll wrap it up here for now and will be back tomorrow with more Okinawa travel information. Matayasai 👋