Ume Somen

Have you ever heard of ume somen? I know you've heard of somen, or at least I hope you have. Somen is a type of thin Japanese noodles, they are usually white, but in this case they are pink! And if you don't know, ume is the Japanese word for plum. So they are basically plum noodles...that are pink!

They look pretty cool right? I bought them in a small specialty food store in Japan. My host mother found out I loved ume, and told me about these noodles. We searched for them everywhere, but couldn't find them....until the very last day! I even bought some other flavors too, like yuzu, goma, and ocha!

The ume flavor is very subtle, so I don't recommend eating these noodles with too much sauce. What I did was I enhanced the ume flavor with some edamame (soybeans) and some extra ume furikake (rice seasoning). It made a delicious lunch!