About 900 people who ate ‘Nagashi Somen’, which is made by scooping out noodles flowing in a waterway at a famous noodle restaurant in Japan, suffered from mass food poisoning. According to various media outlets, including Japan’s NHK,
on the 6th, a total of 892 food poisoning cases occurred in a restaurant located in스포츠토토 Tsubata-cho, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the month of August alone. The number of mass food poisoning cases occurring in Ishikawa Prefecture is the largest since 2020. It was discovered that the patients had eaten at the restaurant between August 11th and 17th. Ages ranged from 1 to 80 years old, and 22 of them were hospitalized with symptoms of abdominal pain, fever, and vomiting, but none were seriously ill, and all are currently known to have recovered. The restaurant’s main menu, Nagashi Somen, means ‘flowing somen’. It is famous for its unique method of letting water and somen noodles flow together through a channel made by cutting half a bamboo tree, where several people scoop out the somen noodles with chopsticks and dip them in soy sauce broth to eat them. This menu is also popular among Korean tourists. It is a popular menu during the summer, and it became a hot topic when Kwak Tube, a famous Korean YouTuber, visited the restaurant in September last year. As a result of an epidemiological investigation at the local public health center, Campylobacter, the causative agent of food poisoning, was detected in the spring water used at Nagashi Somen. The restaurant was suspended for three days. The restaurant said on its official website, “We will close the business as soon as compensation for damages is completed,” and “We sincerely apologize for the pain and inconvenience caused.”