The Yoshida Croquette Soba Legend

When I want to have something light to eat, I often stop by Yoshida. It goes without saying that “Yoshida” in Ginza stands for soba (buckwheat noodles), but it has only been around fifteen years since my first time there. It began with a newspaper column featuring “B-grade gourmet food,” local food and other interesting varieties. One day, it spotlighted Yoshida’s specialty, “Croquette Soba.” It was a completely different experience from your typical bowl of soba noodles in soup with a croquette on top served at any other soba stand. The ingredients and texture were sensational and have been a fan ever since.
“Firm pieces of green onion float around in the soup, with a croquette – but actually something more like a round “tsumire (meatball)” – in the center. When you carry the croquette to your mouth, it doesn’t fall apart like the croquettes that we are used to having in the soba booths in the station. The hard texture is close to a tsumire or tofu hamburger.” (Nazo-shoku Tantei (Food Mystery Detective)(Chuko Bunko))
That is how I expressed it in a book that I wrote back then. The unique croquette is made by “removing the skin and gristle from the chicken, mincing it, mixing it well with grated Japanese yam and egg, and then lightly deep frying the mixture,” according to what I was told by owner that day.
Some customers come for the “Kaki (oyster)-soba” during winter, and others for the “nabe” cuisine (cooking various ingredients in a broth in a deep pan at the table) only served at dinnertime. Many fans were shocked when the restaurant that had always been on Konparu Dori (an extension of Suzuran Dori) in 7-chome suddenly disappeared two years ago. Then after a year, it reopened on Sukiya Dori, one street to the west of Nishi-Ginza Dori, on the second floor of the building housing Sankame, a Japanese cuisine restaurant. This time, I went to their new location to interview the okami, Ms. Kazuyo Yajima, about the restaurant’s history and unique episodes (of course, after I enjoyed some “Croquette Soba.”

Kazuyo-san, Nobuo’s mother, mentioned that she was “the same age as His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, only I was born four months earlier.” This means she is 83 years old, but she looks much younger! Yoshida was originally founded in Hamamachi and they set up a branch in Ginza in 1896 (Meiji 28). The name was derived from Jishuken Yoshida, a tea master from the Genroku years (during the Edo period).
“The founder of the Ginza restaurant was called Kineko Suhara. My parents came out to Tokyo and worked under her until they were asked to run it.”
The only daughter of her parents, Kazuyo-san was born at the restaurant in 7-chome and has always lived on the second floor. She went to Taimei Elementary School, which I happened to have interviewed before. With the Matsuzakaya Department Store her playground, she was a true city girl. And she would probably have to walk by the current location on her way to school every day……
“Yes, I think our school doctor lived right next door, or somewhere close by.” Her descriptions were quite vivid.
Speaking of vivid stories, in my previously interview with her about the “Croquette Soba,” I recall being told that Mantaro Kubota, who was a regular customer, would go upstairs to check out the Geiko who gathered at the kenban registry across the street.
Examining the town map of 1937 (Showa 12) in the Ginza History Walk Map (published from Soshisha) that is in my possession, I found across the street from Yoshida Soba, the Shimbashi Geiko Arts Training Center., which must have been his target. The year 1937 would have been a time when Kazuyo-san hung around the restaurant as a little girl while Mr. Kubota took peeks at the Geiko.
“Mr Kubota would always order “Mori” but confuse us by commenting that he didn’t like the shredded nori seaweed on the “Zaru-soba.” However, in a haiku that he wrote for us, he mentions the beauty of the nori seaweed that is sprinkled on the soba: “Toshinose ya soba ni kaketaru nori no tsuya”
While Yoshida appears in many essays by different authors, its appearance in the 1953 (Showa 28) movie Tokai no Yokogao (Profile of a City), directed by Hiroshi Shimizu and distributed by Toho, has left the strongest impression on me. (Of course, I learned of the movie in a recent showing). The story is simple. A small girl becomes lost in Ginza and Ryo Ikebe wearing a sandwich advertising board and Ineko Arima, the shoeshiner, help her. One of the intentions of the movie has been to advertise Ginza restored after the war, and it is interesting to see existing stores shown one after the other. We find Hisaya Morishige in Wakamatsu, the Japanese-style café where the girl uses the washroom, and across the street from Colombin with its Eiffel Tower-shaped advertising sign, in front of Kobe Bank is fortune-teller, Junzaburo Ban. As the story proceeds, Ineko Arima calls out to a fellow shoepolish boy,
“If you deliver this (a pair of polished shoes) for me, I will treat you to a Croquette Soba at Yoshida on the way home.”
Although the restaurant itself is not shown, we can tell that the Croquette Soba was already popular back in 1953.