I’m a very slow eater, so there was no question I was going to be a winner at Azumaya, a restaurant in Iwate Prefecture famous for its wanko soba menu. The deal is to eat as many bowls of noodles as you can, one after the other, until you signal you’re done by placing a lid on your last bowl. I managed a mere 20 bowls (before you’re impressed, know that each bowl contains just a few strands of noodles, with 15 bowls considered equivalent to what you’d be served in a normal soba restaurant). The winning number is an impossible 570 bowls of soba, consumed in a competition.

a wanko soba restaurant — My waitress delivering bowl after bowl of noodles, as fast as we can finish them

For more on wanko soba, as well as other quirky culinary treats in Iwate Prefecture, see my article published in gettingontravel.com (which has since ceased publication):

gettingontravel.com-Wacky-Wanko-Soba-and-other-Culinary-Oddities-of-Japans-Iwate-Prefecture-2 Download