Yuichi Oikawa (right) makes noodles with assistance from staff at a noodle machine manufacturing company in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. (Mainichi)

RIKUZENTAKATA, Iwate -- With his hands covered in flour, 43-year-old Yuichi Oikawa was tasting strands of freshly-boiled soba noodles. The third-generation owner of a popular soba shop here called Yabuya, Oikawa had driven three hours to the Miyagi Prefecture capital of Sendai on July 4 in search of a new noodle-making machine.

At a company that manufactures such machines, Yuichi was particularly concerned with the ratio of flours as he tried out a model. The machine was capable of making "nihachi soba," or "two-eight soba" indicating the ratio of regular wheat flour to soba flour -- something that was not possible with the machine he previously used, which was washed away by the tsunamis that followed the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.

"I'd like to buy it," Yuichi said as he stared at the shiny silver machine, his arms crossed in front of his chest. "But it' a steep price for a disaster victim."

That evening, he called over his 68-year-old mother Yoriko and a cousin to the temporary housing unit where he lives with his wife and two children. As they sat around a small table, they reached for some noodles that Yuichi had boiled.

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