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Yajima Ya, a closer look
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Never gets old - sunset shot overlooking Ala Moana Bowls and Waikiki
Aloha!
3/7/11 - We've all seen the Cosmo Service Station on Sheridan and S. King, between Keeaumoku and Hinone Mizunone restaurant. Up until only a few years ago, I wondered why so many of my Japan-Japanese friends knew about this place. Turns out the owner, one Mr. Yajima-san, is from the homeland and advertises widely on Japanese-language media throughout the island. Listeners to outlets like KZOO Japanese radio station had already built-up a kind of familiarity with Yajima-Ya Udon and Soba Truck even before they opened several months ago, as not only were they already aware of Yajima-san's Service Station, but also to the fact that he had been running a kind of private club for several years, where he, upon his many travels to Japan, would return with various hand-picked foodstuffs, all pre-ordered and for only a select few. It was a kind of All-Star list of only his favorite items, found himself while searching high and low for the very best Japan has to offer. Lucky us, I guess this enterprising entrepreneur finally thought it was time to open things up a bit, food-wise!
Anywhere you look in Nihon-land, you'll find inexpensive noodles of the street-food variety, from yatai carts and mom 'n pop shops to vending machine-ordered bowls eaten while standing up! Without a doubt, Yajima-san is hoping to duplicate these particular types of noodle shops, where you can find a good deal of quality at a minimum cost. And what better way to keep costs low in Hawaii than by opening a lunchwagon? Or, shall I say, bandwagon? I mean, it seems everyone and their brother is sporting a new mobile outpost, and it's creating fits for guys like me who are supposed to be covering these things!
Although we were lucky enough to find parking in the Yajima-Ya lot twice, I can't say you'll necessarily have the same good fortune, as there are a total of 3 spaces there (4 if they're all mini-coop's!) - and one of them is seemingly always taken by the same white station wagon! Gotta be either an owner or employee, right?!
You could park on the road, too, or maybe leech on one of the surrounding lots, but you never heard it from me. However you get here, once here, there's 4 tables available under a large tent, and you best find a comfy spot underneath, or at least don't travel too far away, as you don't want noodles over-cooking in their containers en-route!
Daily specials are included on make-shift sheets of paper, as seen above, while sitting on several menu boards are lists chronicling a number of other Japanese food choices.
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As you can see, there's a bunch more than just udon and soba. Not really surprising, actually, but this particular menu board did throw me for a bit of a loop!
Didn't expect to find waffles and artisan coffees! And no, we didn't sample any, but please do try some for yourself and let me know!
But let's dive right into the main menu, which is udon and soba. Both are priced at $5, but for all intents and purposes, it'll be more like $6-$6.50 or more, since most toppings come at an additional $1-$1.50. Of course, choices like pork, beef, and shrimp tempura are priced accordingly higher still.
I suppose you could order just noodles, but with extras like this kitsune (deep-fried tofu) soba, I'd suggest otherwise:
I don't actually remember ordering tenkasu (tempura shavings), which is a $1 choice, so I believe they provide it as a kind of complimentary garnish to certain other orders. I love seeing these tiny bits sprinkled over the top, as they provide an extra deep-fried flavor and richness to an otherwise squeaky-clean bowl of noodles. Yeah, kitsune is also fried, but is then packed, shipped, and stored wet long before presentation - not quite the same!
The soba noodles themselves were al dente and nicely done, and sitting in a warm shoyu/dashi-based soup that was simple and satisfying.
Here's a bowl of udon with kabocha pumpkin tempura:
And a bowl of sansai udon, sansai meaning mountain vegetables. If they don't look like your typical greens, that's because sansai has historically alluded to mountain vegetables that grow naturally in the wild, not on a farm!
Both the udon and soba broths here seem to embody a darker, more shoyu-based flavor than I actually prefer, but still carry that nostalgic, light yet tasty nature of genuine Japanese noodles. The udon noodles above were excellent, coming chewy-firm and silky going down the throat. Simple and satisfying, they were right on the money as far as their target goes, which is inexpensive, quality-oriented Japanese street foods.
Of the non-noodle choices available here at Yajima Ya, I highly recommend their curry. Though you may know I'm not the biggest fan of Japanese curry, as I tend to favor Indian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and African curries more, this one was absolutely delicious:
In fact, it kinda reminds me of Coco ichibanya, which may be frowned upon as cheap and chain-store'ish, but for some reason, I'd still take their version of Japanese curry over just about anyone else in the genre. Instead of finding a whole lotta meat and hard vegetables inside, you'll mostly get the taste of curry itself - a good thing, not bad! It's not as thick and clumpy as you'll oftentimes find, either, but thin and runny, which is perfect for soaking into the relatively good quality of rice you'll find here. Doesn't this look delicious?!
There are several tempura choices here, starting with a 2-piece order ($3.50) that can be added to any bowl of udon or soba:
Of a decent size and great taste, I do have one caveat with this particular dish. Now, I'm not sure if such is always the case, but the two times we've been here, every piece of tempura, whether Kobocha, shrimp, or whatever, had obviously been sitting for quite a while before being presented - not quite the best situation for deep-frying!
On the other hand, you could tell this batter was made from a higher-quality flour than most. Despite already cooling to room temperature and firming-up quite a bit, the crunch was still, well... a good crunch, for lack of a better word! I mean, it wasn't crispy-light and delicate like a piece of tempura still piping-hot, but it wasn't soggy, over-battered, or too hard of a shell, either.
I suppose a firm coating does make situations ideal for a sauce of some type drizzled over, such as this teriyaki over a side of kakiage, or vegetable tempura:
The sauce was very nicely done; not too sweet nor too shoyu'ee, and with a beautiful, glossy sheen. The same was also poured over their bowl of tendon ($9), where sweet potato, carrot, eggplant, and other mixed vegetables were deep-fried along with shrimp, then placed over a bowl of white rice:
And finally, there are two types of meat bowls, a pork/ginger and beef, both priced at $6.50. A sucker for variety, I chose a combination of the two, for $9:
The beef was fine, with thin, soft slices, but the pork was much better, coming with a glaze of teriyaki and a mix of onion and bell pepper. Though the rice underneath was excellent, it was obviously not as fresh as what we experienced here on another day.
Over-all, I was still pleased with our meals. Yajima-san has definitely picked a variety of inexpensive, every-day Japanese foods that are obviously of a good quality. There were a few hiccups in the delivery, though, such as pre-made tempura pieces, a certain station wagon hogging one of only three parking spaces, an inconsistent rice, and even a lunch hour where they completely ran out of rice (I did get mine!)! Poor customers after me, they were absolutely dumbfounded!
Yajima Ya Lunchwagon
Sheridan St. just makai of S. King St.
497-7991
Monday-Friday 7:30am-7:30pm
Saturday 7:30am-5pm
Hit-up another popular food truck the other day - I'll pass-on the story real soon, but before that, I promised to wrap-up our coverage of several Korean restaurants, so I'll do so on the next Closer Look. Until then,
take care, and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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