South Niigata · TokamachiNo.1019★★★Open in map →

Hegisoba

— Funori-bound soba from Niigata's snow country

foodThe classic — done right

A noodle from Niigata's snow country, bound not with egg or yam but with funori seaweed, then laid out in one-bite coils on a tray of stripped boards. The road station in Tokamachi sells it dried and serves it cooked.

FromTokyo Station
~2 hrShinkansen, then local line
Get off atTokamachi Station (Hokuhoku Line and JR Iiyama Line)
On foot
Hegisoba

Directions ↗

Where it is

12 more notes in Niigata · open the map →

What to look for — in walking order

Cross Ten Tokamachi road stationtail_furry / CC BY-SA 3.0

Echigo-Tsumari souvenir halldried hegisoba beside Uonuma rice, the bottles of nearby brewers and preserved goods
Tsumari Shokudothe ground-floor canteen serving hegisoba and Tsumari pork from farms around the town
Wasou Kogeikan kimono hallshops for kimono, silk crafts and small woven goods from the district's looms
The hanging-doll umbrellaa Guinness-recorded display of 12,088 hand-stuffed dolls suspended from a single umbrella

How to actually get there

Tokyo Station → Echigo-Yuzawa Station (Joetsu Shinkansen, fastest 66 min).
Change to the Hokuhoku Line and ride through to Tokamachi Station (paper ticket only — IC cards are not accepted).
Walk about ten minutes from the station toward Route 117 to reach Cross Ten.
Start at the souvenir hall, eat in the canteen, then look in at the kimono hall on the way out.

Shinkansen to Echigo-Yuzawa, then the Hokuhoku Line: Take the Joetsu Shinkansen from Tokyo Station to Echigo-Yuzawa, the fastest run 66 minutes. The standard connection allowance to the Hokuhoku Line there is six minutes. Ride through to Tokamachi Station, then walk about ten minutes toward Route 117. Not every Hokuhoku Line train runs through to Echigo-Yuzawa, so check the destination before boarding.
Back from Tokamachi Station: Return on the Hokuhoku Line to Echigo-Yuzawa and change to the Shinkansen. This is a single-track local line and services thin out through the evening, so fix the return train before you settle in. It is the local line, not the Shinkansen, that sets the last connection to Tokyo, so check it at the station.

Directions from my location (Google Maps) ↗

About the place

Hegisoba belongs to a district rather than to one shop's recipe, so the honest door into it is a public counter, not a queue outside a private restaurant. Cross Ten stands on Route 117 in central Tokamachi and works as the district's shop window. Its Echigo-Tsumari souvenir hall sells the noodles dried, beside Uonuma rice and the bottles of nearby brewers. Its canteen serves them cooked, on the tray the dish takes its name from. Along the same building, the kimono hall carries the silk trade that gave the noodle its binder in the first place. One roof, three ends of the same story.

How to enjoy it

The souvenir hall opens at nine and the canteen keeps a narrower midday window, so this is a stop between trains rather than an early or a late one. Take the noodles with the mustard they come with: wasabi does not grow in this valley, and mustard is what the district has always used instead. Autumn brings the new buckwheat crop, which the national food record rates highest for colour, taste and scent.

Background & history

Funori is a seaweed, and in the Uonuma district it was a weaving material first: it was used to stiffen the weft threads on the looms that made the local cloth. Someone carried it from the loom to the kitchen and used it to bind buckwheat, and the noodle took its slippery, elastic body from that switch. The tray is a hegi, from hagu, to strip — a square box built of split boards. Cross Ten itself opened in 1983 as the centre for the district's trades, and was registered as a road station in 1997.

Before you go

Cash: The Hokuhoku Line does not accept Suica, PASMO, ICOCA or any other transport IC card. Buy a paper ticket, or a through ticket at the JR counter in Echigo-Yuzawa. Entry to the road station and its car park are free, and the shops and canteen are ordinary counters, so carry cash as well as a card.
Good to know: This is deep snow country, and winter shortens the opening hours of the halls inside. Some of the shops close on Wednesdays, so check before making a special trip for one of them. The outdoor toilets stay open around the clock, and the car park can be used even when the halls are shut.
Another way: By car, leave the Kan-etsu Expressway at Echigo-Kawaguchi and follow Route 117 south, or at Muikamachi and take Route 253. There are 362 ordinary car spaces, which makes this an easy base if you are touring the Echigo-Tsumari art fields.
After you get off: Tokamachi Station is served by both the Hokuhoku Line and the JR Iiyama Line. From there it is about ten minutes on flat, paved streets toward Route 117, with a road-station sign at the entrance.