Revisit: Japanese udon @ Inaniwa Udon·Nabe, Hong Kong

We recently enjoyed a family date out at this fabulous Japanese noodle restaurant in the mall downstairs. I came to Inaniwa Udon·Nabe before with a Japanese friend, and loved it, so I was more than happy to suggest this noodle place when we were thinking up of nearby places to lunch at. I think we've found our favourite 'neighbourhood' noodle shop. Once again I noted that most, if not all, of the diners inside were Japanese expats - a good sign for a Japanese restaurant outside of Japan. The interior was beautifully done, and we were quite comfortable during our meal.

Gorgeous interior:

We could order from both the a-la-carte menu and lunch sets, and between the two, there were lots to choose from. The restaurant served a decent variety of appetisers including some robatayaki items and salads, as well as various nabe (hotpot) dishes. We all ordered and enjoyed dishes featuring the restaurant's specialty: Inaniwa udon, handmade by Japanese suppliers in its seventh generation in the Akita prefecture. The 4.5-year-old had such great fun slurping up the chilled noodles, and he didn't make too much of a mess!

The boy chose the Inaniwa Udon with Tempura lunch set, which came with the option of hot or cold noodles, and he chose cold. The set came with salad, prawn and vegetable tempura, onigiri and tsuyu dipping sauce with grated ginger and sliced green onions. The tempura was a bit too greasy for my liking, but there were no complaints from the boy!

Hubby chose the Inaniwa Udon in Curry Soup with Beef, also from the lunch set, served with salad and onigiri. The curry soup was quite different to the Japanese kare we are used to, but it was perfectly enjoyable and the noodles were perfectly slurpable with the not-so-spicy curry soup:

I couldn't resist ordering again the Cold Inaniwa Udon with Three Kinds of Dressings: tororo (made from mountain yam aka nagaimo), duck dressing and onsen tamago (hot spring egg). I enjoyed it, but hubby couldn't bring himself to like the viscous texture of the tororo dressing, nor the almost-raw egg dressing; he loved the duck sauce though:

Hubby couldn't resist finishing off the meal with something sweet. The Chocolate Truffle Cake tasted as good as it looked:

All of us enjoyed the food, and I'm sure we'll be back for more!

Inaniwa Udon·Nabe
Shop 2002, 2nd Floor, Elements
1 Austin Road West
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon
Hong Kong
Tel. +85 2 2196 8989