SUMMER and SOBA

Yes that's right, It's hot hot hot in Melbourne so this means many things;

Portable air conditioners sold out!

BOOST juice watermelon crush

Trams with no air conditioning

and of course cancelled trains, and the beach too.

But you think to yourself, what do we eat in the oven style summers in Melbourne?

We have so much food, lot's of variety and most of the time we're spoiled for choice.

Summer presents a challenge because we need to satisfy our pallets, stomachs, and our health!

Today was a 34 degree day, with a hot breeze. It was quite unrelenting.

I wondered the streets, in amongst my photography, after my haircut I felt hungry.

What to have?

I thought laksa, but it was too warm for that.

Sushi, eh.

Then walking past Laurent which is excellent for pastries and a good espresso with atmosphere on the side. I saw Tokyu.

Good and cheap japanese food.

You have your usual suspects, the assorted donburi and snacks like takoyaki and yakitori.

Then I saw my meal - SOBA salad.

Perfect.

A cool and satisfying salad.

I sat down, the place was quiet apart from a couple sitting behind me.

The people who run it are like the Japanese grandparents you wish you had.

Good service. Friendly. Efficient. No bullshit either - just how I like it.

My Soba Salad cost $8.80, quite reasonable.

It was also a very good size. Not too big, not too small.

I think I mentioned this once before about salads, but I will say it again because it is important. You can often find an eatery will skimp on the quality of vegetables in salads because they mix them all up and cover them in some horrid salad dressing. Beware!

This salad today was very fine. The soba noodles were chilled and cooked properly, the tomato was fresh and sweet, the cucumber was lovely and delicate in flavour. The seaweed was great - and I especially liked it because it wasn't too salty.

Some places fall into the trap of using seaweed that is heavily salted. I don't like this. It makes me thirsty and it is not good for your health.

You wouldn't want to use a salty seaweed in this salad anyway because you have the soy flavour in the dressing as the dominating flavour. But it dominates in a good way. If you know good japanese food, you know that it is possibly the most delicately flavoured food in the world, but you sometimes get these lovely extremes dancing around your mouth ever so briefly. Just lovely.

So this salad cooled me down just right!

I highly recommend.

It's off lt Collins street and near Laraunt and Sushi Monger.