Every morning at Tei-An, before the lunch crowd walks in from the Arts District, the day’s soba gets made by hand. The dough is mixed, rolled thin and cut into noodles in the time-honored Edo style the restaurant calls ni hachi, two parts wheat flour to eight parts buckwheat. Very few restaurants outside Japan still make soba this way, and Dallas has had one doing it since 2008.
The man behind those noodles is Teiichi Sakurai, and his path to the noodle board ran through Amarillo. Sakurai came to Texas from Japan as an aviation exchange student, then took a job at a hibachi restaurant in Amarillo before moving to Dallas to work as a sushi chef. In 1995 he opened Teppo on Lower Greenville, built around charcoal-grilled yakitori. Tei Tei Robata Bar followed in 1998. Both shaped how Dallas eats Japanese food, and he later sold each one to the chef who ran its kitchen.
Soba was the dream he saved for himself. He studied at the Tsukiji Soba Academy in Tokyo in 2006 and opened Tei-An at One Arts Plaza in August 2008. The global financial crisis hit a month later, and the early days were slow. Dallas came around, and the soba has kept the restaurant on the city’s short list of essential tables ever since. Sakurai has been a James Beard semifinalist six times.
Tei-An has a different ownership story now. Sakurai first sold a majority stake to two new partners, Ryan Beal and Jason Putnam. Then Hunter Pond, who founded Vandelay Hospitality Group, the company behind Hudson House and Drake’s Hollywood, became the majority owner. Sakurai stayed on as a partner, and Beal and Putnam remain in the ownership group too. Pond said at the time that he wanted to leave Tei-An mostly as it was, and the soba remains Sakurai’s. People who work there say the restaurant doesn’t open without him.
The best way to taste what he does is the simplest. Order the noodles cold, with a dipping sauce, so nothing gets between you and the buckwheat. The Tei-An Sampler lets you try more than one style at once, and it’s a smart first order for anyone new to soba.
On a cold night, go for a hot bowl. The Soy Dashi Broth soba is the classic, clean and savory, and the Curry Broth soba is richer and warming. The kitchen also has fun with the noodles in East-meets-West dishes like the Bolognese and the Carbonara, plus Yakisoba and a Truffle Soba.
Start with something small from the tempura list, such as the Tei-An Shrimp, and then let the noodles be the main event. For a bigger night, the restaurant offers a seven-course tasting of Tei-An signatures. A separate omakase is led by Chef TaeJin Kim.
Tei-An is at 1722 Routh St., Suite 110, in One Arts Plaza. Lunch runs 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and Sunday. Dinner is 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, and 5 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The restaurant is closed Monday. Call 214-220-2828 or see the full menu.
