Nigashi Somen

Nigashi somen or flowing somen is a Japanese summer tradition that involves eating Japanese somen noodle by letting it run down a bamboo gutter with cold water. People would stand next to the gutter and catches the cold noodle as it runs down, and then dip it in somen sauce to eat.

My friend Philip bought a miniture plastic somen contraption from Japan, and brought it over to share. I am sure we can just rinse the somen and just dip it in the sauce without going through this whole contraption. But using nigashi somen was super fun, especially when trying to catches the noodle with chopsticks as it comes down, and watching friends trying to do that and failed.

Regular and green tea somen

The machine bumps water from the water reservoir at the bottom and propells water out at the top where the little house and wheel are at. Then the water goes down the gutter and back down to the reservoir and get to be reused again.
Along with somen, my friends and I prepared some sashimi and side vegetables. How's my knife skill look on the sashimi? I like to cut and align things out neatly, at least for presentation. I mean 1/3 of creating appetite is from visualization, so I like to present my food nicely.

Sashimi as side dish

It was a very nice and fun experience, a light and satisfying dinner!