Interview with Kouta Kasai, owner of Chukasoba Kouta
With a flavor you could enjoy every day, Chukasoba Kouta enjoys enduring popularity in its hometown of Kojima.
We spoke with its owner, Kouta Kasai.
Aiming to be a beloved neighborhood diner
Could you tell us how you came to open the restaurant?
Kasai (honorific omitted)
I’m from Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture.
I became interested in dairy farming and went to a high school in Hokkaido where I could study it.
After studying dairy farming, I wanted to try other things, so I returned home. I traveled around Japan, working mainly in restaurants.
For example, I worked at a ramen shop in Tokyo and an Okinawan restaurant in Okinawa.
As I moved from place to place, I eventually came to Kojima, Kurashiki City.
After coming to Kojima, I worked for about 10 years at my wife’s mother’s obanzai restaurant. I learned all sorts of things there.
While working there, I decided to open a restaurant like the friendly, lively neighborhood diners I enjoyed as a child, where people could drop in for a casual meal.
I love ramen. Ramen is a dish enjoyed by many people.
Incidentally, even if I had opened a neighborhood diner, I planned to include ramen on the menu.
Opened the restaurant with help from local people
Did you train at a ramen shop before opening one?
Kasai
When I worked at a ramen shop in Tokyo, they let me gain experience in every aspect of the business. I think that experience has been invaluable.
I also learned a lot about running a restaurant from my experience at the Okinawan restaurant and my mother-in-law’s restaurant.
Even so, there was a lot I didn’t know about, such as raising funds, finding a property, discussing construction, and handling various procedures. With the advice and help of many people I’d met over the years, I somehow managed to get the restaurant open.
I’m truly grateful, and still feel deeply thankful.
And so, in 2016, we opened Chukasoba Kouta at its current location.
In 2021, we opened our second location, the Nakasho branch.
Keeping a deliberate touch of “roughness” makes it welcoming and enjoyable
What do you focus on when running the restaurant?
Kasai
We aim to be “a place where people can drop in casually without feeling they have to be formal.”
I originally wanted to run a neighborhood diner because I wanted it to be a friendly, lively place loved by local people.
That hasn’t changed, even though we’ve become a ramen shop.
We run the restaurant with the aim of creating a place where people can enjoy themselves casually, like at a neighborhood diner, without getting tired of visiting every day.
Our goal is to be a place people can visit without hesitation.
We haven’t narrowed down our target audience. We want people of all ages and genders to enjoy themselves.
Our goal is for people to think, “Where should I eat today? How about Kouta?”
I’m grateful to the local community, our customers, and everyone else whose support makes it possible for us to run the restaurant.
I want to keep serving ramen with that gratitude in mind.
What do you focus on when it comes to flavor and cooking?
Kasai
Not just in how we run the restaurant, but our theme for the food is also “relaxed and easy to enjoy.”
To achieve that, we deliberately keep a touch of “roughness.”
This doesn’t mean working carelessly; it means not making the way we cut ingredients or arrange the dishes too precise.
When everything is too perfect, people can feel a little intimidated.
We aim to make ramen that feels welcoming and enjoyable by letting a little roughness show.
A menu informed by experience at an obanzai restaurant
Could you tell us what makes your ramen special?
Kasai
The soup for our chukasoba is based on chicken bones.
We simmer the chicken bones slowly until the broth turns cloudy, bringing out the full flavor of the chicken.
We make our noodles in-house, using thin, straight noodles to complement our soup.
We wanted our chashu to be the kind of topping that makes you happy to see it in your bowl and leaves you feeling satisfied. We make it thick, with a good balance of lean meat and fat, and season it to bring out the flavor of the meat.
This chashu is homemade and aged for five hours.
Another highlight of our chukasoba is spinach.
I wanted an ingredient that would give your palate a break partway through the meal, and thought spinach would go well with our chukasoba.
That idea came from my experience at the obanzai restaurant.
The “seasonal soba” feels like a dish unique to Kouta.
Kasai
That’s right. Our seasonal soba is a chukasoba unique to our restaurant.
The seasonal soba’s soup and noodles are served with seasonal vegetables simmered in chicken broth and bound with egg.
The vegetables are mainly sourced from the local area.
Because we use seasonal produce, the ingredients change depending on the time of year and also on what’s available that day.
It’s exciting to see the ingredients change. And it’s nice to have plenty of vegetables for their nutritional value.
Seasonal soba is a dish that draws on what I did at the obanzai restaurant. We made dishes using ingredients that were in season.
We also adapted the dishes we made to suit the ingredients available each day.
We brought this flexible approach to cooking into our ramen shop, and that’s how seasonal soba came about.
I want to run a ramen shop with people who can enjoy it together
Is there anything you’d like to try in the future?
Kasai
I’d like to expand to multiple locations.
I’m in the ramen business because I want to do something fun, not because I want to create a systematic operating structure, so I come to work with a smile every day.
I’d like to run ramen shops with interesting people who can have fun alongside us.
Chukasoba Kouta: a relaxed place to enjoy ramen that makes you want to visit every day
Just as owner Kasai hopes, Chukasoba Kouta is a welcoming place where you can “visit every day” and “drop in casually.”
The chicken-bone-based soup is light yet full of flavor, with a taste that somehow keeps you coming back.
The thick, homemade chashu topping is deliciously addictive, too.
Be sure to try their delicious chukasoba.
Chukasoba Kouta details
| Name | Chukasoba Kouta |
|---|---|
| Address | 4047 Ajino, Kojima, Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture |
| Contact | 086-697-6686 |
| Parking | Available (15 spaces) |
| Hours | 11:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. |
| Closed | Monday Third Tuesday |
| Payment methods |
|
| Reservations | Not accepted |
| Seating | 26 seats total (maximum) ・Counter: up to 10 seats (varies depending on circumstances) ・Five tables seating four ・One table seating six |
| Smoking | Entirely non-smoking |
| Restroom | Western-style toilet |
| Families with children | Strollers may be brought inside Children’s chairs available Children’s tableware available |
| Accessibility | Wheelchair users can enter the restaurant, but the entrance has stairs and assistance is required Restroom is not wheelchair accessible |
| Website | Chukasoba Kouta Instagram |
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