Home/Niigata/Tokamachi/Kojimaya Sohonten

Kojimaya Sohonten

hegisobasobafunoriTokamachilocal specialty

Niigata · Tokamachi

37.1669°N, 138.7382°E

Hegisoba is Tokamachi's soba, and what separates it from every other soba in Japan is the binder. Instead of wheat flour the dough is bound with funori, a seaweed also used to size silk thread — Tokamachi was a textile town and the material was already in the workshops. The result is a noodle with a slippery surface and a firmness closer to a rubber band than to a Tokyo soba, served cold in one-bite coils laid in rows on a hegi, a shallow cedar box.

Kojimaya opened in 1922 and is the shop most often credited with fixing the form. It still mills its own buckwheat on stone. The main branch is a large roadside building outside the town centre with parking rather than an atmospheric old shop, which is worth knowing before you go looking for one.

Essential Information

Opening Hours

11:00 AM – 9:00 PM (last order 8:30 PM)

Closed: Irregular closures — confirm before travelling

Entrance Fee

¥968 per portion of hegisoba | ¥1,738 for ten-hegi with tempura

Best Season

Year-round; new-crop buckwheat from late autumn

Visit Duration

45 minutes – 1 hour

Getting There

Access Information

Nakayashiki 758-1, Tokamachi City. About 10 minutes by car from Tokamachi Station; parking for 40 cars. Open 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM, last order 8:30 PM. Closing time may be brought forward in winter in bad weather. Closures are irregular rather than on a fixed weekday. Hegisoba ¥968 per portion, ten-hegi with tempura ¥1,738. 120 seats.

Insider Guide

Premium

**Order by the portion, not the box.** A hegi is sized to the group; one person's share is one portion and the menu prices it that way. Two portions is a normal appetite for the plain version. **Karashi instead of wasabi.** Tokamachi historically had no wasabi, so hegisoba is served with Japanese mustard. Try it before asking for a substitute — the seaweed binder and the mustard were worked out together. **The texture is the dish.** If you expect soft, nutty, hand-cut soba you will think it is wrong. The slipperiness is what funori does and what the town is proud of. **Two shops, similar names.** Kojimaya Sohonten here and Echigo Tokamachi Kojimaya are related businesses that separated; both are good and neither is a copy of the other. This is the one founded in 1922.

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