Takumi

Takumi is a Japanese restaurant that opened a couple of months ago in Presidential Towers. It's owned by the My Thai folks , and while I am no fan of My Thai, I kinda liked my first lunch from Takumi today. As a caveat, I am a Japanese food neophyte, but what I ordered, I enjoyed. That included an appetizer of pork and wasabi shumai dumplings and beef udon. The shumai consisted of five tiny packages of chewy, nasal-clearing meat and starch that I enjoyed very much; strong flavor, a sort of culinary exclamation mark that I'd like to try as part of a larger meal to use contrapuntally with the other dishes on the table. That said, they went down very well by themselves in close succession. The udon was a HUGE portion for $6.95 (lunch special; they threw in a so-so cabbage salad with what I can best describe as Japanese Thousand Island dressing; please chime in if you know the proper name for that). The problem with getting this as carryout is that I didn't have a proper bowl at my desk to pour it into, so eating was a challenge -- but rewarding. The broth had a good, solid beef flavor that was highlighted by "sweet" notes coming from the onions, carrots, cabbage and (I think but may be wrong) ginger. The beef was plentiful, as were the noodles, which were thick and with plenty of tooth. One other disadvantage of eating this out of the huge plastic vat in which it came was that I had to eat it in layers (first, plucked out the beef and cabbage; second, slurped down the broth; third, ate the noodles). I recall from my grade school social studies classes that Japanese soup is supposed to be eaten in stages, first slurping up the broth then eating the solid parts separately (true, false?). However that may be, the problem here was that there was a big dose of herbs and spices down at the bottom of the plastic udon jerry can that I think properly should've been mixed into the broth, rather than hitting me all at once at the end. That, of course, is a minor complaint, and not something you'd run into if you were to dine in.

So, that was my experience and my 2-cents' worth. Anyone (especially someone with better Japanese dining creds) been and want to chime in?

I've been there for lunch three times now, and I like it. I've had the vegetable tempura, which is good, but not the best I've ever had. Last week I had the lunch special as take-out, which included better than average miso soup, and your choice of a california roll and another roll (I chose spicy tuna). Generous helpings of ginger and wasabi were provided. It was a very satisfying lunch and I'd order it again in a minute. Sushi was relatively fresh. I'm no sushi expert, but I do enjoy the food there and considering it is close to my office and not horribly expensive, I'll be eating there again soon.

Suzy

Any new reviews for this place. I'm moving to Pres. Towers and wondering if it's good?