Kanda Yabu Soba has been making handmade soba noodles since 1880 and is among the oldest restaurants still operating in Tokyo. The original building burned down in 2013 and was rebuilt to the same design; the aesthetic — bamboo garden, tatami rooms, cedar panels — is unchanged. The soba is pale and fresh, with a clean, nutty flavour that mass-produced noodles cannot replicate.
Order mori soba (cold, with dipping sauce) or kamo nanban (hot, with duck). Sake from a ceramic flask accompanies nicely. This is traditional Tokyo eating in its most refined form — not cheap by soba standards but entirely reasonable for the experience.