Cosy Hifumiya serves housemade Japanese udon noodles by day before transforming into a roaring izakaya at night

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“You’ve never been to Hifumiya before?” bellowed my friend in disbelief.

I quietly sucked in some air through my cheeks: one of my involuntary reactions when I don’t know what to say, and I’m trying to buy myself some thinking time. No? Yes? Sort-of?

In my defence, I reckon I had three solid reasons for having to hesitate before answering. First: I had been to Hifumiya and eaten and drunk extensively, but only after dark when the restaurant transforms into Jigoro, a lively Japanese izakaya. (More about this two-businesses-one-space concept later.)

Second: I’ve tried to hit this specialist udon noodle shop a couple of times over the years but was put off by the lunchtime queues that, a friend tells me, can sometimes extend right onto Murray Street.

And finally: of the three main Japanese noodles, udon is my least preferred so I rarely check for it when I’m eating out. It’s not that I hate udon, of course. It’s just that Japan’s pale, chewy wheat noodles pale in comparison and deliciousness to the eggy snap of ramen egg noodles (and not to mention the ramen universe’s infinite combination of broths and toppings) or the earthy, nutty joys of soba: the country’s beloved home-grown buckwheat noodles.

Think of ramen and soba as the first two Die Hard movies with udon representing the rest of the franchise.

As it turns out, udon can be just as enjoyable as any noodle from Japan, or any country for that matter. Or at least it can be when it’s made by Daisuke Hiramatsu, the owner and flour whisperer behind Hifumiya.

Born in Japan’s Okayama prefecture, Hiramatsu learned to cook at traditional kappo (“counter”) restaurants before heading to Perth in the early 2000s to make sushi at the city’s famous Jaws restaurants and at Matsuri. While kappo and sushi dining is synonymous with high-end restaurants and dishes and plates rich in seasonal symbolism, Hiramatsu’s end game was to open a place that was everyman in spirit: enter, the affordable, nourishing bowls of udon noodles that he’d eat after school in his hometown of Kurashiki (intriguingly, also the birthplace of jeans in Japan). And so Hifumiya came into being in 2018.

Named after the traditional Japanese words for one, two, three and four – the better-known ichi-ni-san is derived from the Chinese pronunciations for numbers – the name represents Hiramatsu’s hopes to establish a new start for Japanese food in Perth. On paper, the idea might read as self-aggrandising, but as those aforementioned lunch crowds attest, Perth seems to be onboard.

At any given time, the make-up of the queue and the packed dining room covered in blonde timber and Nipponese ephemera looks like a cross-section of the CBD crowd. There are suits. There are students. There are staff of various levels of seniority from nearby Royal Perth Hospital. There are food writers finally eagerly awaiting their first taste of housemade udon noodles and questioning their life choices over the (at least) past six years.

Because while the queue might look long and intimidating, it moves quite quickly thanks to an ingenious cafeteria-style ordering system and what seems to be an unspoken understanding among diners that Hifumiya is a hit-and-run prospect, not least because the lunch hour clock is ticking.

The system works like so: guests line up until it’s their turn to order; you grab one of those ubiquitous black and red-rimmed Japanese lacquer trays then tell the lead udon cook your order. It’s kosher to use dish numbers rather than names to expedite the process, so saying “number four” rather than “warm kamatama mentai udon” is absolutely fine.

The menu is divided into two main categories: udon noodles served in a traditional warm broth, or udon noodles served in a chilled bukkake-style broth. Please don’t Google the latter, just know it’s a legitimate Japanese term. Noodles come in both regular (from $8.80) or large (from $9.80) sizes but, truly, the quantity of food one gets in a stock-standard bowl of udon will be more than enough for most, not least if you’re going to supplement with a mini rice bowl (donburi; from $4.50) topped with all the tasty things, or grab a few items from the hot food display holding prepared fried items.

Think plus-sized fritters of shaved veg bound in a golden tempura batter ($5.50); triangles of crumbed fried mackerel ($5.50); or skewers of extra-golden nuggets of fried chicken karaage ($5.50). You probably weren’t counting on bulking out lunch with those add-ons, but considering you’ll have to pass the hot box to pay for lunch, it’s more than likely your willpower will crumble. Consider yourself warned.

But back to the noodles. They’re made in-house using Japanese machinery and, appropriately, a very udon-specific noodle flour that’s milled in Japan using West Australian wheat that is shipped to Asia, processed then sent back here. Like so many elements of the current food system, all this transport might sound unnecessary and even environmentally irresponsible, but it’s hard to argue with the end product: slippery, supple noodles of remarkable and rewarding chew.

When Hiramatsu first started making noodles in 2018, he tried using local flour direct from the Wheatbelt, but the unpredictable protein content made things tricky. (He says the medium-protein percentage of the Japanese-milled flour is crucial for udon success, as is the percentage of ash – 0.38 per cent, trainspotters – which helps give the udon noodles their pale colour and tensile strength.)

He also says that while he’s gotten better over the years, he’s still learning and, like baking bread, fermenting pizza dough or any process involving flour, seasonal and climatic considerations come into play during the day-long process that involves mixing and ageing the dough.

During lunch, Jigoro’s crack squad of noodle cooks work non-stop, cutting noodles, boiling noodles, washing noodles and serving noodles, all at a speedy pace to keep the line moving and the dining room turning.

The entry-level kake udon ($8.80) is the simplest and most affordable way to see what Hifumiya and Hiramatsu are all about. Consisting of nothing but the house kakejiru broth (unlike most traditional dashi broths, this broth isn’t made with kombu seaweed, but five different kinds of dried seafood that Hiramatsu sources from Japan, including the dried baby sardines frequently used in soup stocks from his region) and those outstanding noodles, it’s another lesson in less being more.

While Japanese food is a cuisine that respects history, it’s also open to change and absorbing additional influences. See the curry options among the warm noodles with the udon slicked in a mixture of the house broth and sweet, comforting Japanese-style curry: curry found its way to Japan via the navy, who needed a nutritious meal that could feed an entire ship of sailors on the cheap.

While the imminent arrival of winter (any day now) means cold udon’s shelf life is fast approaching, you could still sneak in a bowl of something like the toriten ($16.80) which stars chicken karaage, lettuce and a tartar sauce that, as you work your way through the bowl, mixes with the broth to create an intriguingly addictive salad dressing-style experience.

Hifumiya is a vibe. I’m sad it’s taken me this long to get aboard the train. (My friend from before says he went 10 times in the first two weeks of opening.) And while the room doesn’t pump with the same sake-fuelled energy it does when it becomes Jigoro at night, there’s certainly no shortage of life in the space. And in the interests of encouraging would-be operators to think outside of the box when it comes to business models, exposing so many people every day (Hifumiya does 500 bowls a day during the week and up to 700 on weekends) to the pros of two different business concepts operating out of the one space can only be a good thing.

In these economically challenging times, doesn’t an “alternative” opening approach like this sound like a safer option then taking on six- or seven-figures’ worth of debt to open somewhere new before even making your first sale?

Japanese food culture has contributed much to the way modern-day WA eats and drinks. We can find sushi in supermarkets and shopping centres everywhere. The savoury fermented soybean paste miso has been embraced wholeheartedly by chefs. Eaters gladly queue for brilliant housemade udon noodles at lunch.

What other elements of Japanese – and indeed other countries’ – food culture could we incorporate into our life?