Toshikoshi soba

at omisoka, when is toshikoshi soba usually eaten at? at the lunch time? at the night time for dinner? both is ok?

please teach me soon, it is almost the new year. thank you.

I, a Japanese, didn't know but have found it after web search that Toshikoshi Soba is eaten, wishing to enter the new year without trouble, that is, it should have been eaten before the beginning of the new year (0 o'clock of 1st January).

oh thank you!
its planning a surprise newyears eve date for my gf. lunch and dinner and countdown.

i had decided to toshikoshi soba noodles at dinner time.

anybody here in tokyo knows the nice place to go (money is no object) ??

this is the first new year event at tokyo. i am from china, so i am new here this year.

thank you.

I think the idea was that you eat it as a late-night snack (before midnight) on the New Year Eve, "soba" being a snack (not a full meal). That's what we used to do when I was a kid - at that time many people used to eat dinner early (6 or 7 in the evening) then stay up watching the annual NHK song competition TV programme until midnight :) But habits have changed, so some people eat it for lunch, or for dinner, with plenty of topping to make it a full meal.

The toshikoshi-soba custom seems to vary depending on the region or family.

Growing up in a Tokyo-based family, I was always told that you should eat toshikoshi-soba at midnight while listening to the joya-no-kane which is the temple bell rung as the year changes. I recall eating a soup soba with no topping.

I remember being told that on New Year's Eve, everyone is busy cleaning the house and preparing the New Year feast to be eaten during Janunary 1-3, so after a long day, you would take a late bath and then have a quick midnight soba supper, just as you would eat hikkoshi-soba when you're busy moving your residency.

But my in-laws based in Fukui say they always ate it with other dishes during dinner time which is typically around 6 pm. In Fukui, people would top soup soba with daikon-oroshi, finely chopped negi and katsuo-bushi. This is called "Echizen soba" taken from the region's name.

Then for the first time in my 20 years of living in Yokohama I am spending New Year's Eve here, and the take-out soba I reserved is mori-soba, the un-soup soba in which you dip it in the soba-tsuyu.

Either way, it is believed that by eating soba, you are supposed to live "hosoku nagaku (thin and long)" in other words modest and live long by being modest. But I've even heard of a region where you eat that thick udon instead. And you're never too late, because in places like Fukushima and Niigata, you eat it in January.