Soba

Soba is a grain crop known as 'buckwheat' in English. It is best known for the noodles that it is made into, also known as soba. Soba is one of those words for which there was no suitable Chinese character available, only the compound word qiao³mai⁴. As a result, the word soba is written in Chinese characters. While seldom seen, this sometimes appears on menus, as on the following menu outside an upmarket restaurant in Tokyo.

Ran-uchi kamo-jiru seiro soba Ran-uchi duck-soup seiro soba

For the most part, however, soba is written in hiragana, as in the following sign.

Yaki-soba. Fried noodles.

A Google search revealed the following pattern of usage (August 2003):

Soba

Form	No. of occurrences
	1,790,000
	159,000
	125,000

Yaki-soba

Form	No. of occurrences
	121,000
	59,300
	35,600
	13,100
	2,360
	2,190
	264

See also yaki-niku, yaki-tori.