Nankai Soba Namba 3F at Namba City

Stand-and-eat station soba counter inside Nankai Namba, brewing dashi from katsuobushi.

Nankai Soba Namba 3F is a stand-and-eat soba counter inside Nankai Namba station, run by Nankai Shoji and rooted in a brand whose first shop opened in Namba station in 1966. The kitchen builds its broth from katsuobushi and urume, prepared painstakingly rather than from concentrate, and the result is a clean, deeply savoury soup. Soba, udon and yellow kisoba noodles are all interchangeable across the menu, so diners can pair the broth with their preferred texture. Seasonal and limited dishes rotate through the year, keeping regulars coming back for something new each visit. For a fast, cheap and genuinely good bowl of soba right inside the ticket gates, Nankai Soba is hard to beat. Its three-beat promise of tasty, cheap and quick has made it a fixture of Namba station life for over half a century.