Zaru soba noodles, top, with yuzu and matcha salt and tsuyu dipping sauce; above, kakiage, a shrimp and vegetable fritter.

At Sobar, Masato Midorikawa’s Culver City restaurant, your bamboo sieve of noodles comes with a set of instructions. First, taste the noodles bare. Next, sprinkle some yuzu salt onto one bite. Then try matcha salt on another. Only then should you dip your noodles in the provided bowl of cold or hot broth. This is the way to fully appreciate ju-wari, a style of soba made from only buckwheat flour and water. Each morning, Midorikawa mixes the flour and water, then uses a machine he developed with a partner in Japan to make every tray of noodles to order. The earthy flavors are deeper and more intense than soba made with the addition of wheat flour, and the speckled gray noodles are denser and more brittle. The yuzu salt heightens the nuttiness of the buckwheat, while the matcha salt is more subtle and grassy. There’s asmall menu of appetizers and sashimi to help round out the meal. The kakiage, served as a tangled cylinder of fried onions and shrimp, is the preferred soba sidekick, but there’s karaage, agedashi tofu and assorted Japanese pickles too. — J.H.

12404 W. WASHINGTON BLVD., LOS ANGELES, (310) 439-1029 l SOBAR-USA.COM