Soba, buckwheat noodle is a popular noodle in Japan. Although ramen noodles are dominating among the young generation, soba noodle are more traditional one. As same as ramen bars, soba noodles are provided mostly at restaurants/diners specialized in soba or soba stands at major stations. It is interesting but you can hardly find any ramen stands at stations. Noodles at stations mean soba or udon.
This photo was taken at Oboke canyon in Tokushima, where Iya soba is the local dish of Iya region. Soba, buckwheat is grown mostly in mountainous region in Japan as like Iya region.
This Iya soba contains sweetened aburaage(fried thin tofu), scallions and kamaboko (fish cake) as toppings. Then, usually soba or udon noodles containing aburaage is called Kitsune soba/udon. Kitsune actually means fox in Japanese. It is named after due to Japanese think fox loves aburaage.
Then, there is a tradition to eat soba on the evening of the New Year's Eve. The custom to eat soba on the New Year's Eve is to cut off the bad luck of the current year and not to bring the bad luck to the next year.