Soba Kappo Reiwa 蕎麦割烹 令和 at Chinatown

TLDR: We won't revisit again. Signature cold buckwheat soba with Spanish white pork slices was underwhelming. The warm spicy dipping sauce was tasty though. $12+ Zaru cold soba with dashi soy dipping sauce tasted a bit tougher than the usual soba. $10+ Potato salad with cream cheese, miso, onions and cucumber was a unique twist to the usual salad, albeit with a bland taste. $6+ Assorted seafood tempura with prawn, eel, and garfish was neither crispy nor crunchy. Though it could be the restaurant's choice of buckwheat batter. $14+ Pricing: The dishes are reasonably priced. Slightly cheaper than other soba joints Availability: Tried queuing during Sunday opening time at 5.30pm. First on the wait-list and managed to grab two seats as most reservations seemingly are from 6.30pm onwards. Advised to book/reserve ahead of time as there's only 15-18 seats. Service: Both reservation lady and young waitress was friendly and cheerful. Greeted us before, during and after our meals. However, when we requested if there was any dipping sauce for the tempura, one of the older waitress pointed to the plate and said "You see, the sea salt is here". Strongly suggesting for us that we should dip tempura with sea salt rather than anything else. She did bring tempura dipping sauce for us later though. Additionally, she took away our tempura plate without asking if we were done with it during our meal. ** Purely our personal food tastes and experience.

Nothing special but lovely interior and good service. I liked the cold soba but that’s honestly something you could easily replicate at home. Hot soba was a solid blah. However, the beef “stew” ($12) was seriously disappointing and a waste of money. It was an extremely small portion of very bland clear water and there was little meat; most of the soup contained chunks of fat.

Boring. The sauce was more reminiscent of Chinese spicy dips albeit not spicy at all, which wasn’t a bad thing. However I kept comparing it to 重庆小面 or 凉面, and the soba combination just doesn’t work as well, owing to the fact that they don’t hold sauce as well as Chinese style noodles. I like the soba texture but that can’t stand on its own. I ordered the assorted seafood, wakasagi and yassai tempura as well, but the ingredients within the batter were pretty blend and of average quality. The salt pairs well with the batter but I’d rather they sprinkle it when the tempura is fresh out of the fryer so that it adheres better. Although the price is on the lower side, the dishes felt amateur at best. Tea was good though. And there weren’t any problems with the reservation.

Was lucky to be first on the waiting list on a Thursday night in April. Got our table after about 20mins wait. Service crews were very polite and friendly. Love the seasonal squid sashimi! First time having buckwheat tempura, not as crispy as the usual ones but tasted healthier! Love both the texture of hot and cold soba. Staff was very kind to remind us to eat the hot soba ASAP after serving as the texture of the soba will change if soak in soup for too long. ? Staff also reminded us to make reservations on our next visit so as to avoid waiting and disappointment.

Food was mediocre at best, felt like we could get better soba elsewhere. The texture of the soba had a bit of mushiness that we were not a fan of. The dry soba’s dipping sauce was so underwhelming. The seabream broth was okay. Sides were not great - oysters were fishy, the rest nothing to shout about. Service was such a turn off. They have a minimum spend of $50/ pax if you make a reservation and you’re only limited to an hour dining. Felt so rushed because they were rushing to clear plates the moment we finished and cut us when we were in the midst of conversation. The only thing good was their umeshu but nothing else to recommend at all.

Very disappointed with the food and service. The soba was mushy, dipping sauce not much flavour as expected. The tempura was not crispy and very oily, I not sure why they insist of using the whole wheat flour to make the batter. The idea is good but the execution is very bad. Something was wrong with the batter or oil temperature. Dashi tamago didnt taste much flavour and the egg was not doing well. The sashimi not fresh.Overall is a bad experience, kind like apprentice or newbie cooking, will not recommended to others.

Ordered the pork soba and the tempura chicken. The chicken did not use regular tempura floor but buckwheat floor and it wasn’t crispy. The chicken was soft and tender and luckily not dry. Green tea was good but it was $1 and not refillable. Pork soba was the main dish and the pork was tender. The dipping sauce was slightly spicy and tasted more Chinese than Japanese. Soba was nice and different from what we usually get at other places in sg. Overall a unique dining experience but I wouldn’t be back again.

The signature pork soba with spicy dip sauce is not bad, but I find it lacks the depth of traditional dashi based sauce. The noodle texture is not as chewy as I'd like. The prawn tempura is quite good, the prawn is cooked just right, not over cooked. This is not the place if you're craving for those 3 generation soba places in Japan.