Soba noodles are thin Japanese noodles made from buckwheat flour. They can be served in a broth or cold with various toppings and dipping sauces.

Because buckwheat is fragile when boiled, soba are usually boosted with wheat flour, but they must have at least 30 percent buckwheat to be authentic.

Soba noodles are a Japanese staple, the stuff of fast-food and New Years Eve celebration dinners. Soba are also the noodles of choice in Tokyo, where soba are eaten with chopsticks; when eating hot soba-based soup, loud slurping to suck up the hot noodles is de rigeur, not a faux pas.