This photo is of my bowl of somen with special pink ume-flavored noodles. Somen noodles are thin, Japanese noodles served cold with a soy sauce-based broth - the tsuyu. It's often topped with various things. The one in the picture has egg, cucumbers, nori (dried seaweed) cut into thin strips, and green onion. My mom prepared this somen with tsuyu that included some strips of shiitake mushrooms.

Somen noodles are usually white. It's hard to see from this photo because they're mostly covered by the "toppings", but the noodles in this bowl are actually a light pink color. They're ume somen. My parents recently went to Japan and brought back the ume somen noodles from Wakayama prefecture where my father's family is from. Wakayama is well known for its ume.

The noodles had a very light ume flavor and were delicious!