The Place We love Ramen. In fact, we love everything Japanese. Now now, how about combining some of the best ramen in one shop – that’s Takumen! Started as an online store in Japan, the owner decides to bring their first restaurant globally into Singapore. With Takumen enjoying strong relationships with more than 100 ramen brands, they will be looking to introduce some of the very best in their restaurant. On rotation now includes the award wining ramen Hajime and ramens from Honda Shoten, Sakutaya, Do Miso amongst others.

The restaurant at Circular Road seats 30 pax, with a pretty fuss-free dining concept. The typical open-concept and neatly arranged kitchen coupled with small tables and counter seats,  Takumen literally imports Tokyo into Singapore. While it currently serves 6 different concepts of ramen, Takumen is keeping its offering simple by serving each ramen simply with add-on options such as the usual Japanese marinated eggs, addition noodles, more soup, and what have you.

The Food First up, Tori-Paitan Ramen from Hajime ($14.90). Soup base boiled from simmering chucks of chicken for 8 hours, adding the flat noodles into this rather creamy soup completes this award winning ramen from Hajime. tRP have to say, this was the best ramen we had at Takumen! The broth was really tasty, with the distinct chicken aroma, thumbs up!

Ramen Kurume from Honda Shoten ($15.90) is the ramen we are more familiar with – tonkotsu ramen. This pork broth prepared using selected “preserved” pork bones might be too “thick” for some, especially if you order the larger bowls. That said, tonkotsu ramen rarely fails, definitely a safe choice! Love the thin noodles of this ramen too – chewy texture, similar to the “mee kia” many local Singaporeans will be familiar with,

Yokohama Iekei Ramen from Sakutaya ($16.90) seems celebrating both the essence of the earlier two ramens – a combination of chicken and pork. You might find the soup a little thick, mainly due to the long hours of boiling the pork bone marrow. If you like the strong favoured soups, this might be the ramen for you. But if you are looking for something light, we do advice you skip this! This wasn’t tRP’s favourite ramen of the day, but Miso Ramen from Do Miso ($17.90) would be a rather unique choice from the usual ramens. Slightly spiced, made with a blend of miso and boiled with both pork and chicken bones, this ramen’s broth is rather dense – with ingredients including seaweed, shitake mushrooms, mackerel, bonito and dried young sardines! You get the idea, this soup is packed with flavours and you can throw in some Japanese butter to complete the overall taste. Our verdict: There’s too much in one bowl, we still like to keep things simple and would go for a well-balanced ramen instead.

Rants Not the ideal place if you are looking for a long chill-lax meal. The fast and fuss-free service, coupled with the simple ramen offerings, made this restaurant almost a fast food concept. That said, this is the same for every other ramen store, no?

Will I return again? Well, Takumen has more than just these 6 ramen brands which they collaborate with. The constant rotation of ramen options will definitely bring ramen lovers like myself back again on a gastronomical journey through Japan. Can’t wait!

TheRantingPanda says:
Taste bud: 3.5/5
Hole in the pocket: 3/5
Ambience: 3/5
Overall Experience: 3.5/5

Takumen
66 Circular Road
Singapore 049420
Tel: 6536 4875
Website: http://sg.takumen.com/

Opening hours:
Monday-Thursday: 1130am-3pm | 530pm-10pm
Friday: 1130am-3pm | 530pm-12am
Saturday-Sunday: 1130am-3pm | 530pm-9pm