中華そば カドヤ食堂 クリスタ長堀店

Foodholic Niko @ Osaka, Japan

"Kadoya Shokudo" is a restaurant that specializes in Chuka Soba (Chinese-style noodles). The Chuka Soba is not served with dipping soy sauce, but rather with a soy sauce-based broth for dipping.

There is more than one "Kadoya Shokudo" location in Osaka. I initially wanted to try the main store, but after encountering some transportation issues, I scrapped that idea. However, I happened to find a branch at the subway station near my hotel, and since I was feeling hungry, I decided to give it a try.

We arrived around 6:30 PM, and there were only 3 or 4 other customers in the restaurant. After looking at the menu, I noticed that compared to other ramen shops in Japan, the prices here are a bit higher for both the ramen and dipping noodles.

Special Chuka Dipping Noodles (Tsukesoba) ¥1880
Compared to the regular dipping noodles, the amount of chashu pork slices was significantly more—originally there were only 2 slices, but the special version had about 6 or 7 slices, plus an additional soft-boiled egg.
The chashu pork slices tasted mediocre with no memorable features.
The soy sauce broth for dipping noodles was not hot enough, and the soba noodles were not chewy enough. Overall, the dish felt a bit lacking, and I probably won’t return in the future.

There are a couple of things worth mentioning that left me feeling a bit unhappy:

1. The food preparation time was long. After we placed our order, we waited about 20 minutes for our food to arrive, even though there weren’t many customers in the restaurant. I was quite hungry at the time, so the wait felt a bit frustrating (although I later noticed a sign stating that the dipping noodles take longer to prepare. However, the customers next to us who ordered dipping noodles received their food in less than 5 minutes, so I would advise caution if you are very hungry).

2. As soon as we sat down, they handed us the menu in Chinese (which we did not request). This led us to believe that the items listed were the entire selection, but we later found out that the standard dipping noodles were not included. This gave off a rather unpleasant impression, making it feel as though they were deliberately trying to mislead foreign customers.