Okinawa soba: the island noodle with no buckwheat

If you arrive in Okinawa expecting soba, you may be in for a pleasant surprise. The noodles in your bowl won't be the slim, grey-brown buckwheat strands of mainland Japan. They'll be thick, pale yellow and chewy, made from wheat, and they'll be sitting in a clear, savoury broth beneath a slab of melt-tender pork. It's soba in name, and something entirely its own in spirit.

Why it's called soba

On Japan's main islands, soba (蕎麦) almost always means buckwheat noodles. Okinawa soba (沖縄そば) contains no buckwheat at all. Its noodles are made from wheat flour, which puts them closer to ramen or udon, though with a texture distinct from both: firm, slightly springy and often a little flat. Our guide to soba covers the buckwheat kind, if you'd like to compare.

Older recipes are said to have used lye made from wood ash to give the noodles their bite and colour, a job that alkaline salts usually do today. Either way, the result is a noodle you chew rather than one that melts away.

The name has a little history of its own. Because Japanese food-labelling rules generally expect anything called soba to contain buckwheat, the name "Okinawa soba" needed special recognition. October 17 is now celebrated as Okinawa Soba Day, and the date is said to mark the day that recognition was granted, back in the 1970s. If you happen to be on the islands in mid-October, it's a fine excuse for a bowl. If not, any day will do.

What's in the bowl

The broth is usually made from pork bones and katsuobushi (鰹節), the dried, smoked bonito that underpins so much Japanese cooking. Pork brings body and sweetness; bonito brings a gentle, smoky savouriness. The result is clear, light in colour and deeply comforting, closer to a rich dashi than a heavy ramen soup. For more on the bonito side, see our guide to katsuobushi.

Pork is the star topping, which makes sense on islands where pork has long been central to the cooking.

• Soki (ソーキ): pork spare ribs simmered until the meat falls away from the bone. A bowl topped with them is called soki soba (ソーキそば), and it's one of the most popular versions.
• Sanmainiku (三枚肉): slices of pork belly, braised until sweet, glossy and soft. The name means "three-layer meat", for the skin, fat and lean.
• Kamaboko (蒲鉾): fish cake, usually in neat slices.
• Green onion and beni shoga (紅生姜): chopped scallions and bright red pickled ginger, for freshness and a sharp, sour lift.

Shops mix and match, and you'll often see bowls with more than one kind of pork, but those are the classics.

Koregusu, and the islands beyond

On the table at an Okinawa soba shop you'll often find a small bottle of koregusu (コーレーグース): little hot chillies steeped in awamori (泡盛), Okinawa's own distilled spirit. A few drops add heat and a faintly boozy aroma. It's powerful, so start small and add more once you know what you're dealing with.

Okinawa is a long chain of islands, and the soba changes as you travel. Two variants are especially well known.

• Yaeyama soba (八重山そば), from the southern Yaeyama Islands around Ishigaki, usually has thinner, rounder noodles, with the pork and kamaboko cut into thin strips.
• Miyako soba (宮古そば), from the Miyako Islands, is known for tucking its toppings underneath the noodles, so the bowl looks almost bare until you dig in. Local lore offers several explanations for the habit; whatever the reason, it's a charming surprise.

How to eat it

• Start with soki soba. If it's your first bowl, the spare ribs show the dish at its most generous.
• Taste before you season. The broth is gentle, and it's worth knowing how it tastes on its own before the koregusu goes in.
• Go easy on the chilli. A few drops of koregusu is plenty for most people.
• Take your time with the pork. Pull the meat from the bones with your chopsticks and let each piece sit in the broth for a moment.
• Look for a rice set. Some shops serve soba with jushi (ジューシー), Okinawa's seasoned mixed rice, which makes a bowl into a full and very satisfying lunch.

The bowl that kept its own name

What I love about Okinawa soba is how firmly it belongs to its islands. It borrowed a mainland word, set aside the mainland ingredient and built something that tastes of local pork, bonito broth and island spirit in a little bottle. It isn't trying to be ramen, and it isn't trying to be buckwheat soba. It is simply Okinawa's.

If you're plotting a route the length of the country, our traveller's map of regional ramen ends here, in the far south. It's a fitting place to finish: proof that a name is only where a dish begins, and that a bowl can travel a long way from its word without ever losing its way home.