If you ever find yourself passing through the Iwate Prefecture, make a stop in their capital city, Morioka - the home of Wanko Soba (wooden bowl soba), Reimen and Jajamen.
Hatsukoma Honten is the place to go for an authentic taste of Iwate's speciality - Wanko Soba - and to uncover your stomach's fullest potential. This all-you-can-eat soba challenge might first seem like gluttony, but is actually the physical manifestation of Japanese hospitality. You’ll find more info here. .
For this challenge, we were told that on average women usually eat around 60 bowls and men around 80 bowls. This had me raring to go, and my goal was to eat at least 100 bowls of soba noodles. Impossible? Not exactly. Each bowl contains just a mouthful of soba so you can easily down over 30 bowls without so much as flinching.
Fun fact: The current record is 559 bowls. Also, there’s a woman who ate 399 bowls in 10 mins.
With a little bit of planning and a lot of chewing, I emerged a proud mama of 101 bowls of soba noodles in my food baby belly, along with a wooden medal as proof of my achievement (you’ll only be awarded this if you eat more than 100 bowls). Perhaps, I do have the slightest gift of being a closet competitive eater after all.
Hatsukoma Honten
Price: 2,400 Yen (~S$29)
Address: 10-21 Hachimancho, Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture
Opening Hours: 11AM-3PM, 5PM-8PM (evening reservations required)
How to get there:
From JR Morioka Station, transfer to a bus for about 20 minutes to Morioka Bus Centre then walk for 10 minutes.
Article by TheSmartLocal.com
Address: Hatsukoma Honten
Website: https://visitiwate.com/article/4876
Phone: 019-651-7184
