Takumi

I get the Udon Chicken.  I've had it over 50 times.  It's really good. It's been off once or twice but still totally worth it.  Great spot for the winter.  Big portions.  My coworkers always thoroughly enjoy this place as well.

Takumi is impossible to find looking at the addresses. In fact, my friend and I sat down in the noodle shop next door accidentally. I wish I had stayed. Takumi's food was underwhelming. I'm a huge fan and critic of the Spicy Tuna roll. I always order it and I find it inexcusable for a sushi place to miss on such a sushi staple. The roll was messy and had too much mayo (meaning the mayo was probably masking less-than-fresh fish). My vegetable tofu soup was tasteless. My friend ordered a pretty standard combo with miso and a philly roll. It was similarly forgettable. Maybe we should be ordering the specialty rolls, but missing on the basics doesn't bode well for the more complicated dishes. For sushi in the West loop, I would go to TUK.

Anytime I see a place serving ramen, I get super excited as I'm consistently on the search for those flavors I experienced in Japan. The pictures posted outside of the restaurant look fairly authentic, so it can't hurt to try, right?

So, next thing I know, I make my way into the restaurant on a Wednesday afternoon. I was a bit skeptical as it's also a Thai restaurant and they expanded their menu to include Japanese items such as sushi and ramen. One of the more popular ramen's on their menu is the Tonkatsu Ramen, so that is exactly what I ordered.

When you rate ramen, you look at the 3 most important ingredients:
1. Soup - It was ok - not great, but definitely nothing to write home about.
2. Noodles - It was chewy enough, but you can tell that it was from a package
3. ingredients - pork - not melt in your mouth and chewy; they added picked ginger which I thought was strange as it's the first time I've seen it added to any ramen.

I'm glad I tried it because now I can cross it off my list and never have to contemplate what it tastes like.