Update: I-naba Japanese Soba Noodle Restaurant @ S. Decatur Blvd, Las Vegas

Update: so being as we can't order everything on the menu, we often come back to the restaurants that we thought were worth coming back for more.  One of these restaurants is I-naba Japanese Soba Noodle Restaurant (please see prior review for background and previously ordered dishes).

Now that it is full on Summer, it's time to order the dishes that best typify Japanese cuisine during it's steamiest months...


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I-naba Soba is such a welcome relief to Vegas, where cheap and sleazy all you can eat sushi restaurants seem to dominate the almost barren Japanese landscape.  And although we're getting more specialized Japanese venues, it's alway good to have more...

Menu Roundup:

Drinks:         Iced Oolong Tea

Appetizers:  Fried Stuffed Calamari

                    Baterra

Mains:         Ten Zaru Soba

To start off, we ordered some appetizers: the Stuffed Fried Calamari, lightly Tempura battered squid wrapped in light vegetables with a side of Tartar sauce.  This is such a delicious, sophisticated, fried delicacy, the textural paradox of the slightly crunchy shell and the soft bite of squid, analogous to an 'al dente', complimenting as a go between the crisp vegetables and the fried exterior... It opens up the palate to involve the next set of appetizers...

The next is the Battera, which is an old Japanese tradition of Oshizushi. This is a from of sushi that was shaped to be transported, it's a boxed shape sushi with Cured Mackerel and a thinly sliced Seaweed on top, resembling a boxed lunch of sorts... It's an advanced dish folks, cuz you gotta love the fishy fish to begin with, and with the whole preservability of the dish, it's got some vinegar kick to it as well.  But it's addictive once you've acquired to taste...believe me, it took time to grow on me as well.

At the end of every summer during my childhood, it would be a sad time: it would have been the slow end to a wonderful, blistering hot summer vacay in my parents hometown of Fukuoka, a port city off the southern island of Japan.  And as culturally stocking and bizarre it was for this American bred boy to be immersed in a paradox of hi tech technology and archaic traditions paradigms, it was still wistful to leave it all to go back to my New York world.  But on the last leg of the flight at Narita Airport embarking on a twelve hour journey, my mom and I would buy some Battera Sushi for us to have when we landed with Dad at home to eat for lunch.  And there were times, where I could stomach it, and others where it was just too intense for me, maybe it was just too sad to be reminded of the summer and that 'foreign' place where, supposedly my parents were from and supposedly they all looked like me....on the outside...

The Summer always calls for cold noodles, and the Ten Zaru Soba is the perfect dish for lunch.  The combination of fried Shrimp Tempura with the cold buckwheat noodle, the mix of hot and cold is somewhat of a contradiction, but given the time of season, it's a refreshing welcome to consume a cold dish along with a hot one.

The Tempura here is cook just right, the quality of Shrimp is akin to the kind you have in Japan, as as sated above with the Calamari Appetizer, the batter is as light and the contents preserved in their natural state caged in a oily shell.

The Buckwheat Noodle is another essential component to this Far Eastern combo meal: the quality of Soba Noodle is incredibly important; the bite, the flavor, even the 'slurpiness' are all critical factors to Soba enjoyment.  I-naba has a good handle on all these factors, even given the small adjustment to the cut length of this homemade noodle proves that this place is noteworthy and deserves high praise.  And as you pull away the lengthy gems of handmade strings from its nest and dip them into the cold soy broth and slurp them loudly with all your might into your mouth, you can taste a cool breeze from the inside of your body, letting the light of relief stream to your inner depths..

And as if you didn't have enough carbs, there's a small side of flavored rice to satisfy you gullet. (read previous post on the explanation of this rice and its difference to fired rice..)

It's on the whole, it's the quintessential definition of a 'Happy Meal'; a little bit of fried food, a little noodle and then some rice to top it off... And the world is good once again...

Ratings (Out of Five Stars)

Food:          4

Ambience:  2.75

Service:      3.5