Takagi Ramen

I was at Marine Parade Central one Sunday afternoon looking about for lunch, and, to my surprise, discovered that a new ramen place had popped up in place of the Korean grocery store that had once stood there.

At first I felt a slight pang of disappointment- no more dragging The Hedgehog into Koryo Mart to look at soju flavors, frozen mandoos or honey butter popcorn. 

But then I realized I'd actually been introduced to Takagi Ramen before. 

So I decided to give it a try. 

The place is spacious, cheery and bright. 

It's a place that encourages you to eat, and to enjoy your food in your own unique way. 

It's not hard to find a table during an early lunch hour, even on a weekend- that's how many tables they have- but you have to place your order first before you go sit down. 

There're two ways of ordering at this particular Takagi.

One way is to order from the counter.

The other, (recommended way) is to order from the stations outside the store. a bit like those that we see in fast food chains. 

It, howevver, was a new system, and wasn't as maintained as well as it was supposed to be. 

Because the machine had a problem reading our card. 

And another customer had a problem when it wouldn't read his app payment. 

Ordering shenanigans aside, the food was, shall I say, reasonably good. 

Takagi Ramen prides itself on its affordable price.

Which is true. 

What they don't tell you, however, is the size of the portion in your bowl. 

You can't see it from the picture, but $8.90 gets you this huge bowl of (freshly prepped) ramen, lots of warm, delicious soup, a couple of trimmings (spring onions) and two big slices of (Japanese style) char siu. 

The heap of  ramen sitting beneath the soup in the bowl caught me by surprise. 

Never have I had a portion this big for this price. 

Was it authentic? 

(Like, culturally correct)

I don't know. 

It might be, it might not be. 

Admittedly I got a bit of convenience store and/or train store feels. 

But that might be just me.

Because the soup was thick, the noodles QQ, and my meal definitely tasted better than some offerings sold in local food courts at the same price. 

This is a meal that will give you enough bang on your carefully calibrated buck.. 

This is also a meal that will hearten a working man's (tired) soul. 

I could see us workers- after a long day of (mental) or (physical) labor- settling down at one of these small tables tucking eagerly into our meal.

Takagi Ramen is one of those places where you can go to dressed like you're just 'going downstairs for dinner' then go NTUC. 

There's nothing that demands corporate suits here (although, of course you can)

It's a very, very casual place.

With wine (no kidding), and beer. 

We decided to skip out on the alcohol this afternoon. 

Instead we put our carefully calibrated buck to three pieces of gyoza, extra slices of char siu and one mini rice bowl. 

Once again, we were caught by pleasant surprise. 

So maybe my dining companion wondered a little about the prices for the set, but the charm of the egg mayo bowl could not be denied. 

There was a lot of mushed up hard boiled egg. 

There was a lot of mayonnaise. 

And there was a lot of rice. 

This was no half-filled rice bowl mini don with the ingredients filling up the rest of the bowl.

This was a bowl filled to the brim with rice, a single slice of Japanese style char siu laid carefully on top, and a generous, smooth spread of egg and mayo inside. 

For $.3.90.