Dipping noodles, hot and cold

Tsukemen are Chinese noodles that people eat after dipping them in soup.

Tsukemen noodles are boiled longer than ordinary noodles and served after being soaked with cold water. Diners usually receive 1.5 to two times as many noodles as with ramen.

The basic serving style is "hiyamori," in which cold noodles are served with a hot soup. With "atsumori," the chilled noodles are soaked in hot water again and served hot with hot soup.

Similar to the traditional way of eating soba, many restaurants will provide a hot, lightly flavored soup to add to your leftover soup when you finish eating tsukemen.

The dipping soup is usually sweet and sour, like that of Taishoken. However, lately a growing number of soups have a rich taste, their broth made by cooking pork bones or seafood for a long time.

In addition to Japanese flavours, some cooks are branching out to give dipping soups the taste of curry or using ingredients like tomatoes and dairy products to lend an Italian taste.