From a cow-powered noodle factory in Indonesia to a 400-year-old Tokyo soba shop with a fox-spirit legend, Atlas Obscura has mapped out a global shortlist for travellers who plan holidays around what's in the bowl. The through-line: every stop pairs a serious plate of noodles with a story you can't get at home.
Some of the picks are pure history. Inari Soba Mansei in Tokyo dates to the early 1600s and appears in the tale of Takuzousu, a shapeshifting fox-monk who supposedly ate there — the shop still displays a bronze bell from his shrine and serves aburaage fried tofu, the snack folklore says foxes love. Brooklyn's Bamonte's, open since 1900, is the borough's oldest Italian restaurant, once favoured by real mafiosi and later used as a Sopranos filming location; De Niro and Sinatra photos line the walls, and the rigatoni alla vodka remains reasonably priced. Pekin Noodle Parlor in Butte, Montana has been dishing chop suey since 1911 — the oldest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in the US — complete with orange booths, eating cubicles and trolley service.
Others are about craft. Hrimnir Ramen in Oslo brings Norwegian fermentation culture to Japanese ramen, with noodles made from heritage emmer wheat by a microbiologist founder. In Srandakan, Indonesia, Mie Lethek Garuda still uses cows to turn a giant mortar, grinding cassava and sweet potato into flour for its famously 'ugly' grey noodles — chewy, slightly sweet, and made by the grandson of the Yemeni-Chinese couple who started it in the 1940s. At Matsuka Seimen in Kurashiki, Japan, a working udon factory serves kamatama udon with a raw egg cooked by the noodles, and family members knead dough by stomping on it in special socks.
The street-food entries may be the most tempting of all. In Hanoi, home cook Ms. Minh serves northern-style phở — lighter and clearer than the southern version — at plastic tables in her living room, with pickled garlic and youtiao doughnuts for dunking. In Ho Chi Minh City, Mrs. Mai Thi Lien ladles crab-paste bún riêu from a sidewalk pot with a tamarind fish sauce on the side. Phuket Town's Khanom Jeen Pa Mai lets you customise thin rice noodles with everything from dried fish to pineapple, and Singapore's Hawker Chan still sells its Michelin-starred soya sauce chicken with noodles for about $3 — a star chef Chan Hon Meng initially assumed was a prank.
Rounding things out: an '80s neon-drenched karaoke diner in Taipei, trolley-service dim sum at Hong Kong's Lin Heung Tea House (founded in the late 19th century, shared tables mandatory), and Binissalem's Festa des Vermar on Mallorca, where one giant fideus de vermar noodle paella — cooked with red wine — feeds all 1,400 residents each September.
For travellers, this is a ready-made food itinerary: three stops in Japan and two in Vietnam, but also reasons to detour to Montana or Mallorca. Several are cheap, a few are unmarked, and all reward going slightly out of your way.