たけぞう Takezo: family plot

Another big Nagoya ramen shop, Takezo specializes in a little bit of everything. Think big set menus with ramen and gyoza, fried chicken, and rice with assorted toppings like fermented coe roe, grilled chashu, and Chinese twice-cooked pork and veggies.

Ramen places like these are almost more cafeteria that serves ramen than pure ramen joint. Shoyu, miso, tantanmen all get equal billing. My cousin ordered the "shoyu," though it looks like everything here has tonkotsu as a base. Deceptive.

Shoyu ramen (600yen)

The top of the menu is always the safest bet. In this case, a light and colorful tsukemen.

Tsukemen (750yen)

I had their special "black" tsukemen, which is their standard tsukemen dipping broth mixed with a thick black sesame seed oil.

For a ramen cafeteria, this isn't bad ramen! Black sesame oil is usually used as a supplemental topping, but here it's clearly the star. It's more of a paste than an oil, and the flavor and texture is appropriately thick and grainy. Nice change from the usual gyokai-tonkotsu tsukemen. Even the soup wari was different. While it's still the usual ramen water, it was also thicker and almost milk-like. It went extremely well with the black sesame.

The interior here is spacious and great for families. Most families. While I was eating, the family of eight who had just saw across from our table was berating the waiter severely for not bringing them enough cups of water. Classing up the joint!

With our shop, we want people to think...delicious!

Aichi, Tokai-shi, Kagiyamachi, Matsusaki 86
Closest stn: Takayokosuka (but 1.5 km away!)

Open from 11am-3pm and 6pm-midnight (closed Mondays)

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