Nagoya Station Noodle · Flat Wide Udon
Kishimen
Photo: Shubert Ciencia / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
One origin theory claims the noodle's name comes from the board game Go — its wide, flat shape supposedly resembling the stone pieces used on a Go board, giving a noodle dish a name borrowed from a tabletop game.
Very wide, flat wheat noodles — thinner than standard udon and quicker to cook — are served hot in a light soy-dashi broth topped with fried tofu, sliced fish cake and scallion, or cold with a dipping sauce in summer.
Why it's made this way: The noodle developed from a flat-noodle specialty of Edo-period Imogawa (now Kariya City) in Aichi Prefecture, and Nagoya adopted the thinner, quick-cooking shape as its own defining noodle, distinct from the round udon found elsewhere in Japan.
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