Mushrooms and shabu pork soba from Healthy Soba IKI

We've been getting soba from Healthy Soba IKI quite a few times over the past - more than a year. Back from the first visit, I remember liking their lemon soba and shirasu avocado don. Still like that lemon soba which has become a permanent item on menu now and I'm still getting that shirasu avocado don. Here's a look back to the previous visits (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二)

This visit was us catching some year end seasonals. The bowl at the top was their VGA porcini soba with broth made with vegetable stock, kombu and porcini. VGA simply implies it's vegan, gluten free and additive free. It's one of the more enjoyable clear mushroom broths I've had in a while - crisp and umami at the same time. Loved the toasty dried bean curd strips.

The second bowl was a spicy pork shabu soba which I'm not so enthusiastic on personally. It's not much spicy at all. There's a walnut sauce drizzled over which got diluted after you had tossed the soba. Pork slices weren't exactly shabu thin and some pieces were a little hard. Much preferred the porcini one.