Matsugen

We were so excited to try this place — fans of cold soba that we’ve had in the past but, honestly this is the first time I EVER ordered something that I could NOT eat.
I think it may have just been bad ordering on my part as one dish was fine — the ebi tempura and cold soba noodles — next time (if there is a next time) I’d try it with hot broth or hot dipping sauce.
The natto bukkake was beautiful when it came out, but I just could not eat it, why? After mixing it up — the whole thing becomes a SLIMY blob — so disgusting … why?
— half boiled egg on top of cold noodles — if it’s too under cooked imagine eating cold noodles with raw egg whites mixed in
— natto — I didn’t realize this until after research on how in the world someone could eat this dish, that these fermented beans are actually sticky and slimy
The combination with cold noodles meant that this dish is a slimy mess — avoid if slimy foods make you literally gag.
Anyways the little fruit flies and inexperienced wait staff didn’t make up for this experience and it was overpriced relative to all the other noodle options in the area. We learned — if the restaurant is empty in Honolulu — there’s prob another better option elsewhere.

Food — I really enjoyed the food here. I highly recommend the tempura ebi + soba in hot broth combo; it’s delicious! The portions are actually really big (tons of noodles), the broth is light and flavorful, and the tempura is really really good. They use really high quality (and big!) shrimp for their tempura. Delicious. Oh! And I recommend their mochi dessert. Yum!!!
Service — very very attentive and super fast.
Final thoughts — really enjoyed the food and service. A great place for dinner with your family and /​or friends. It’s quiet and clean. Delicious!

This place was recommended by a friend of ours living in Honolulu. It was within walking distance to our hotel, so decided to give it a try during out latest visit.
It is a bit overpriced when compared to Marukame Udon, but told my spouse that this place has other options such as the zaru soba which I ordered plus the tofu salad.
I liked the food, but our young waiter just lacked job experience in dealing with his customers.

I really wish me and my gal had found this place sooner on our short visit as it was the best meal we had in four days. We felt like trying a ‘local’ restaurant and this fit the bill as we were the only white people in the place as it was full of Japanese – which is what we wanted. The menu is translated and the pictures are helpful. There is nothing fancy about the décor of this place but that is fine too – we want high quality food and don’t care about the decorations. This place did not disappoint. It had a feel like this is the sort of ‘insiders’ spot that Anthony Bourdain would eat at on his ‘The Layover’ show or his previous ‘No Reservations’ show.
We ordered the beef tongue skewers and DAMN they were tasty! Perfectly seasoned and oh so tender and melt in your mouth buttery. We ordered more of this item after trying it. The Ahi Poke was the best we had and we tried it two other places. The Kalbi beef ribs were also outstanding, very meaty and well seasoned. For an appetizer we also had the soft shell crab which was great.
Our server spoke excellent English and he was very kind and thoughtful and made sure that we felt comfortable and not out of place at all. We will definitely be coming back to this hidden gem the next time we are on vacation in the Honolulu area. It was less than a block away from the Outrigger Reef Hotel we were staying at.

My mom has been raving about this place for its soba, so I went with her for lunch. At around $ 20 for lunch special, it is a bit more pricey. But considering the taste and how a good plate of soba in Japan can cost about the same, if not more, the price is reasonable.
Service was prompt, the food was outstanding! the Lunch special came with delicious lightly battered, crisp tempura and cold soba. My only beef with it was that the soba sauce was a bit salty, I had to add some more water to dilute it. BUT the soba noodle brought me back to Japan at first bite! I was very satisfied after the meal.

Matsugen is supposedly known for it’s freshly made soba and I’m a lover of noodles, so I was interested to try this place while we were staying at the near by Embassy Suites this past weekend. Matsugen seems like the kind of place that was once a 5 star restaurant back in it’s hay day, but has since gone a little down hill. It seemed to be a bit run down with dirty walls, worn down furniture and just a «low energy» vibe throughout the place.
We went for lunch and ordered the lunch special which included organic tofu salad, mini beef dashi, 1 shrimp tempura and 3 small veggie tempura, and cold soba. It cost around $ 20 and was filling. Soba was a nice texture, and everything else was good, but there was nothing that I «had to have» again and I wasn’t completely impressed by any one dish. Although I did find an Oden menu that had fallen on the side of our table AFTER we had already ordered, I think I probably would’ve like that better than the lunch special. The service also was a little lacking and it wasn’t all that crowded.
After our meal, I wish that I had just gone to Marukame instead, where I would have paid ½ the price and gotten a tastier meal. Other than maybe coming back to try the Oden, I’m pretty sure I would not return to Matsugen again.

Fantastic soba, at this Ebisu, Tokyo-​based shop with 3 locations.
Natto Bukkake is excellent, though if you ask if I’m familiar with the porn expression I’d have to tell you I have no idea what you’re talking about, and even if I did I wouldn’t admit to it here on the Internet.
Back to the basic Seiro Soba:
* Noodles have an excellent chewing texture.
* Dipping sauce has great dashi extraction.
* Real wasabi, not colored/​powdered horseradish.
Don’t forget to drink up the dipping sauce, after they offer you the water used to boil the soba, to dilute to taste.
The oden was also very good, though not necessarily a standout. Not that I’m complaining, as picking oden with friends always makes for great conversation, especially together with sake. And then after a few drinks someone brings up bukkake, again.

Must order: cold soba and tempura
I was invited out to lunch and being that I’m still in my Japanese food phase, I’ll take any opportunity to have Japanese food without the fiancé (he has a cap on how often I subject him to my food cravings).
We got there when it just opened for the day and was seated immediately. I love cold soba and I heard that they make theirs in house. I ordered the cold soba and tempura set. When we got our order, it seemed like a lot of food to me! The soba was light and tasty and the tempura was plentiful and yummy! I loved my lunch and I love finishing it off with the soba-​yu afterwards. I feel like it warms up my tummy and cleanses my fried tempura palate.
If only this place wasn’t in Waikiki, I’d go more often. But if you’re already there, it’s worth going to. Small and off the strip, it feels less touristy.

Long time fan, first time visit. One day intending to hit Nakamura Ramen we came here after the line for Nakamura was about 10 people out the door. Matsugen is down the street on the Beachwalk nestled between Tonkotsu Ginza Bairin and Arancino’s.
I heard about this place many times either through friends or their advertisements on TV. They are one of two places i know of that makes homemade soba (the other being Inaba), so I was eager to try this place out when we had the opportunity… oh and if you know if any other local eatery that makes their own soba let me know!
The menu is not that large as you can enjoy a few appetizers and then hit the main course which is either Udon or Soba. The girlfriend and I tried the cold tomato appetizer with ginger sauce. Damn it was so good I could eat an entire salad, heck an entire orchid of tomatoes of it came like this. The tomatoes were thinly sliced and topped with Maui onions, shiso and the ginger dressing. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
For the main course I had the cold soba with tempura. The soba is perfect. It has that nice chewiness you’d expect from good soba. I also thought the tempura was very good as you can tell it was cooked with ice cold batter and very hot oil… just like it should be.

The additional plus is that they give you the hot water that the soba was cooked in to mix with your tsuyu to make some pretty good sobayu. Not many places I know of locally do this either. Inaba and Ojiya are the other two places I know of that does this.
My girlfriend had the Yasai Udon with Yamaimo. I was able to try some and like the soba very good. The udon also had that nice transparent chewiness that comes from good udon. I’m not sure if they make their own udon noodles but I figure if they make their own soba noodles I’m sure they make their own udon as well.
You can also get Oden here which we didn’t get to try and but it seems like it was a favorite appetizer among all the Nihongin we saw in the establishment. I heard a rumor that Matsugen would be closing soon as the owner may be moving back to Japan so if it’s true you may want to hurry and check this place out.
A bit on the pricier side but you are definitely paying for top quality here. I should also add that there definitely is no parking so what I do is park at the RHSC and walk the block up the street to get here. If you get validated your parking at RHSC is free for the first hour and $ 1 every hour after that up to 3 hours.

This place is small but very cute. I believe it’s known more for its soba but Matsugen also offers udon and oden as well. And a plus was that the restaurant was actually able to accommodate our rather large group of 9.
The soba came in cold or hot soup preparations but I opted to share the chicken soba with my mother and it was a good amount for two especially if you want to get some appetizers.
The beef tongue appetizer came a bit too cooked for my tastes. Beef tongue gets very tough and chewy if cooked too long and I usually prefer mine on the more tender side.
We also ordered the braised beef with daikon, which was very nice. I love the combination and it’s very comforting without being too heavy.
On the table, they offer two blends of spices — shichimi (7 spice) and the yuzu version (Japanese citrus). I like and use both at home but I thought the yuzu one was better suited as it added a nice citrus note to the chicken broth and really added a certain umami.
The prices are pretty high for the amount you get but you can really appreciate the thought that goes into the noodles and most of the dishes.

Excellent, delicious, and where else can you get fresh soba noodles?
Ordered the beef tongue appetitizer, cold soba with sesame dipping sauce, and cold soba with duck meat & dipping sauce. The cold soba and sesame dippig sauce was good but the cold soba with duck meat & dipping sauce just blew me away completely! At the end of the meal, the waiter brought out the soba water to mix in with the duck sauce and voila, it becme the most, absolutely the BEST broth I’ve ever tasted. I sooo missed Matsugen soba! Please open one in the states!

Didn’t even know about this restaurant until a guest at my hotel asked me to make reservations here for them… so I decided to try it out myself too.
If you don’t know, I love love love zaru soba (cold soba noodles). I could eat it every day if I could. And this place makes their own noodles! So awesome. And so good.
Not sure if their AC and sound system was down, but it was very warm in there and almost an awkward dead silence besides the customer’s chatter. Minus one star for those two reasons.
We ordered the dinner special which included a salad, sashimi, cow tongue, tempura and zaru soba. All of the dishes were great. We also ordered a side of kal-​Bi and that was good as well. 5 stars for the food.
I wish we could see them making the soba. We sat on the counter where there was a big board and rolling pins which I assume is where they make the soba.
I would definitely go again for more soba!

…subtle … but buckewheaty!
The sign on the door says — do not enter if you’re allergic to buckwheat.
I think ill put that sign on my door. Because — really — if you’re allergic to buckwheat we probably cant be friends (if you are what you eat — im like 87.37% buckwheat), so you know — we’ll just have to be pen pals or something.
Matsugen seems to cater to the Japanese crowd seeking authentic soba. I say this for several reasons but mostly because of the dishes featuring natto (fermented soy beans) the flavor is subtle, but the texture is probably weird for the palette of most Americans. I almost never see natto on menus of most japanese restaurants on mainland.
We tried a couple of soba dishes one of which featured natto and was awesome, the other had a few different types of mushrooms and tasted «healthy» which is to say subtle, fresh, and overall good but no overwhelmingly yummy flavors (which you can expect from fries, pizza, or hot dogs :)
The space is cool and has several areas one of which is a dough rolling/​noodle making area with rolling pins resting on a what looks like a sword rack — i have no idea how common this is — but it looked cool and thats a plus in my book.

Really fresh Soba noodles. So tasty!
I got to try the cold soba with sesame dipping sauce. Amazing and very refreshing on a hot day. My friend got the cold tempura soba. The shrimp tempura was very plump. This place is more on the pricey side for noodles but worth every penny. Not one noodle was left on plate. Next time I want to try the hot soba.

I had a great experience here. Let’s say that the rule «to find a good Japanese restaurant, look for the Japanese» applies here. They were all from Japan and every seat was full. I’m thinking why you come all this way from Japan to eat food from Japan is odd, but screw it. It was like a lightening rod for me to see them all. It had to be good, right?
it has a neat «bar» area in the middle where they make the noodles. I asked and they make them early in the dinner hour or you can request it of them as well. Anyway, I loved the broth and noodles. They were utterly fantastic. I was confused when the brought out a container that poured hot cloudy water. I found out that it was a box of additional noodle water, which they tout as having additional healthy bonuses. Finally, I’m giving them super bonus points for barley tea as well.
Located in Waikiki it’s on the expensive side of the noodle spectrum as well. There isn’t much parking, but you’ll probably be hiking it in from a hotel or one of the closer parking structures.

Yes, it is overpriced for just noodles, but you’re paying for quality here. The noodles were yummy! I had the kinako sansai soba and it was mmmmm good.
Unilocal 365 Challenge #187/​365

Still really, really good. My co-​workers, who enjoy natto, were crazy about the natto bukkake and its «slimy awesomeness.»
Warning, though: They do NOT validate parking weekdays during lunch!

Holy mother of soba. This is the mecca of soba and udon. Matsugen, I seriously love you, but not so much the service. When we got to Honolulu, one of the spots that we had to eat at was Matsugen. It was a little far of a walk from the west end of Waikiki, but well worth it.
For starters, it opens for lunch at 11:30am. When we got there at 11:30, there was already a party eating which has to mean that this place is good right? I mean Matsugen is not on a major street so you have to be aware of this spot to go here.
It’s a pretty spacious spot for a noodle shop and by golly do they do it right. I got the chicken soba, while my girlfriend go the kamo udon. Both were around $ 12, and oh god was it tasty. The noodles were cooked just right, but the broth was the money ball. Just the right amount of salt, the meat was super tender, and everything just paired well with the noodles.
Everything does sound great right, so why not the 5 stars? Well, unfortunately the service is a little on the slow side. I know that there are only 2 waitresses working the restaurant, but it kind of sucks when I have to wait 15 minutes just to get my check.
Nonetheless, this is the best soba place that I’ve been to in the states. They do it well, and if you’re worried if its legit or not, only Japanese folks come eat here. I could literally eat here every single day if I lived in Honolulu, but since I don’t I’ll come eat here next time I visit.

If slimy is your thing then Matsugen is the place to go for the BEST slimy dish ever, Natto Bukkake! You can choose either soba or udon noodles, both are delicious. My personal preference is udon.
Natto Bukkake comes with natto, a half cooked egg, grated mountain yam, sliced okra, sliced green onions, wakame, cucumber, bonito, and chiso. You pour the sauce over the entire dish and mix it all up. Because i like my ingredients to be completely incorporated by the time I’m done the dish is quite foamy. Just thinking about it has me drooling…
Each table has 3 different spicy dried ground peppers you can add for an extra kick. Personally I prefer the shichimi (red peppers) with this dish.
Strange as it sounds Natto Bukkake is one hell of a delicious and healthy meal. Check it out! You won’t be disappointed.

This place is a good place for soba for sure! They import their buckwheat noodles and hand make them too! If you’re lucky enough you will see the a chef doing it. I’ve gone before and seen it packed and had to wait like 15 mins. However, I went this past Sunday at about 6 pm and there wasn’t a line.
First of all I’m a soba fan, so I have a better idea of the taste between soba you can get from a grocery store, or something made fresh. The noodles are silky, but with the right chewy texture. I like soba with the traditional sauce. We also ordered the spicy tuna with seaweed (nori). It was pretty good, wasn’t very spicy at all, we added some of the chili powder on our table to give it a kick.
It is a little pricy for soba, but it is good soba. I will go again, when the wallet is allowing ;)