Takara Ramen

Good lunch deals with good sized portions. Service was attentive & friendly. They also allowed some customizing despite lunch menu deals. Food was ok but for ramen & sashimi, I’d go elsewhere otherwise traditional bentos and rolls are good.

Takara Ramen is a solid spot to fill that ramen craving. I’ve been looking for a good bowl of ramen without having to drive all the way to San Mateo on the northern end of the peninsula. The restaurant is really small, seats less than 30 people. The overall cleanliness was awesome. I went on a Wednesday night so not too busy. We were greeted immediately with a warm hello and smile. Once seated we had menus and hot tea in less than 1 minute. The prices were on par with most Japanese places in the area. The food came out in a reasonable time and plated nicely. The Kim Chi ramen was very good. Not too salty and generous portion. I also ordered a Philly Roll. The salmon was fairly fresh and they didn’t skimp on the amount of salmon or cream cheese that went into the roll. For
me the only reason I didn’t rate a 5 star was due to the fact that on busier nights with the size of the place chances of a long wait is high and for being labeled as a «ramen» place, the menu options is really limited in comparison to other ramen places in the Bay Area. So if you live or are on the northern side of the peninsula def worth trying Takara vs driving all the way to San Mateo.

Discovered this place through Groupon. Also discovered tiny little spiders in their napkin holder.
The garlic tonkatsu ramen had a thick layer of oil that failed to add any flavor to the broth. The only thing that stood out was from the pieces of plastic-​tasting bamboo shoots that you find in asian markets.
The 8 piece fire roll for $ 4.50 was decent.
Meh.

The lunch special had lots of variety in bento box — 2 gyoza, 1 shrimp tempura, 2 vegetable tempura, rice, salad, two sides. You can get it with Ramen also! For under $ 10. It is average Japanese food. Not too bad not awesome either. The chicken wings tasted generic. The fish fried appetizer was average too.

Groupon had a deal for this place and thus I went out with my friends to try it.
Sushirrito (Salmom, crab, avocado): I do NOT recommend this. There is a LOT of rice and barely any Salmom. I thought it was going to have real crab meat from the description but it was fake crab thus this entire thing was basically all carbs. The ratio was off so you mainly taste a lot of mayo and avocado and barely any fish. This is not worth getting at all.
Sesame Chicken Don: Their lunch don specials aren’t bad for the price! I liked this one even though the batter on the chicken was a bit thick.
Spicy Tuna Don: Again, for the price it’s pretty good and the sauce is great!
Teriyaki Beef Entrée: The quality of the beef itself isn’t the best. There were some fat and it was a little hard to chew.
This place is tiny thus it took a while to get anything done. The waitress tried to take our order with the iPad but it was so cumbersome and slow she ended up writing our order down on a crumpled up piece of paper instead. The food took a while to arrive and they never came by to refill our waters.
I can only recommend coming here for their weekday lunch specials. Even then expect to get what you paid for.

I discovered this little Ramen/​Japanese restaurant through Groupon. I wish I found this place sooner! It’s on the same block as Eggettes.
Service was great both times I visited. The kimchee ramen is really good. Comes with noodles, dry and fresh seaweed, bamboo, corn, pork and kimchee (I like it on the side).
We also tried their sushi. It was good and prices are good.
Take advantage of their groupon or Unilocal deals! :)

This place really exceeded my expectations. The place is cute and small that is well kept and very clean. There service was really good and they are very friendly. But the star of the place is there wonderful food. The calamari was very nice and soft and my soup was just delicious. Most shocking of all is how cheap this place is compared to what all you get. I would definitely recommend this place.

I ordered a curry ramen and the broth taste like water. I never ate my food after that. If you gonna have a ramen place you, you need to make sure that the broth will be great. The one that i got looks like they just put a water and a food coloring. Plus the broth is not even that hot, you can actually drink it straight if you wanted to. Really really bad experience.

There are only a few tables here and it’s been pretty busy every time Ive been here for lunch or dinner. I normally have the ramen, which is so yummy! The noodles have the right amount of chewiness and the broth isn’t too salty. The black miso ramen special is great!
The service is slow though since there are so many people and only one waitress, but considering the proximity of the restaurant to my house and the delicious ramen for such an affordable price, I keep coming back.
They also always have Unilocal deals that you can get!

Took my chances with a Groupon offer with some of the decent reviews. Yes, there is potential but it misses. First thing my son said was that his glass of cold water tasted funny. One sniff. The plastic cup smelled fishy. Ugh.
The chasu in the ramen was thick, egg was soft but tasteless, texture of noodles nice and had a crunch but I felt like I was eating egg noodles at a Chinese restaurant. The beef teriyaki in the bento box looked like a few thick slices of beef in a Chinese stir fry. The worst was the 4 pieces of fried oysters for $ 6.99. Definitely not like any kaki fry with panko I have ever eaten. It was a Chinese batter but totally with no seasoning.
Instead of offering coupons, they should upgrade their offerings.
Will not be going back.

It is small place. I went during lunch hour. I found out that the restaurant is run by Chinese and not Japanese. The food was average.

The food wasn’t great at all. The rice was too soggy, too much vinegar that was mixed with it and the salmon was not fresh at all… blah! We ordered mixed tempura and the sauce is not enough with the order, so i asked for more and the server pointed me to my daughter’s tempura sauce… she didn’t want to refill it, but just use my daughter’s sauce which she has some tempura also. Then we asked for water, they gave us a warm water. You can’t serve ice water?
This would be my first and last trip to this restaurant… rather spend my money to a better japanese restaurant. Which we’ve tried a lot of jap food and this the worst food and nit good quality at all.

I just tried their california roll which was yummy!
I was able to order very easily from their website which links to a service called BeyondMenu I’d never used before. Then I drove there and voila! paid there and was quickly out with my roll.
They have lunch specials for about $ 8 that is not available for order on the online ordering which is too bad. They don’t seem very busy for lunch so I’m glad I found this place and will be back in the near future for a quick lunch

This place is run by chinese people. not saying chinese people can’t run ramen places, just saying its not that authentic. Like I’ve had better. first time coming here cause of the groupon deal. Waitress bought me the curry ramen without a soup spoon.. really now you’re supposed to bring me the soup spoon too. and the workers in the kitchen talk way too loud that i can hear their whole conversation. Don’t think ill ever come back.

Never have I had a bento box that came with ramen. They gave u a lot. At least my tummy said so. Everything was good. Except my friend’s teriyaki beef was too rare. Plenty of parking around the corner. Thanks to a reviewer, I used the voucher. Saved us $ 5!

Bought a friend there for lunch and both ordered bento boxes on a Groupon deal. I like the Katsu pork w /​Ramen soup combo and my friend finished all his chicken teriyaki w/​grilled salmon combo. Each bento box comes w/​1 tempura shrimp, salad, tempura veggies, salads,
gyoza on his, and rice on the side. Both full. Overall service was very good! Great deal!

This is a great little spot in South SF! we were looking for a place to have yummy Ramen and I was so happy to find Takara.
The ramen was delicious and very inexpensive. Awesome little place!

This place is delicious! It is under new ownership and it shows. We tried the chicken dinner combi with gyoza, tempura, chicken and we tried their Fire roll, along with their 49er roll. Both were delicious and tasted fresh!
The service was really great! We had a late night craving and this hit the spot! Didn’t try the ramen but may try it next time.

Great little ramen joint, but don’t go for any of the appetizers — we got the calamari and it was bland and soggy. We came here for the Unilocal deal, but will only return to have their ramen

This place exceeded my expectations! Came here on a rainy rainy day with my manager and coworker for lunch. We were all craving for some ramen and this was so close to work so we gave it a shot. There weren’t many tables but luckily, we were able to fit the last table available. I got the black garlic tonkatsu ramen and I was so surprised at the quality! It was GOOD!!! There was corn, cha siu, spinach, egg, etc! Sooo worth it!
Will DEFINITELY COME BACK!

Very good Ramen awesome Sushi selection tasty. I love coming here when I am in South San Francisco. Always friendly service. The place is very nice bright. I love the comfort feeling with the décor, tv and family friendly. I like coming in and ordering to take home.

I ordered the Soy Sauce Flavored Ramen and hubs ordered their ‘Ma Yau’ (black garlic) Ramen. The bowl comes with all the things you find in ramen places (pork, corn, green onions, bamboo shoots, seaweed… etc). I was a little surprised to see spinach floating in my bowl as well but whatever.
I liked the fact the broth wasn’t over salty. That was about it. It lacked the rich flavor that I’m used to in good ramen bowls. I also wasn’t impressed with the fact that each piece of pork was 75% fat. Some people like fatty meat but 75% of it is a little extreme to me.
The service was nice and the place was clean but I wasn’t impressed with the ramen unfortunately.

I gave this place 4 stars because I loved the Ramen. It wasn’t salty and if they put MSG in it, I couldn’t tell. Somehow, I’ve developed a sensitivity to MSG, and didn’t I swell up. Yay!
The stars are for the Ramen.
The service was so peculiar. I don’t know if it was do to the Super Moon or was just really bad service. It was the kind of service you get when you hire in-​laws who you hate you. We were seated to a really wet table and had to get the waitress’s attention to get menus. The restaurant wasn’t even full. When the waitress gave us the menus, she only gave our 2-​top one lunch menu.
Although we asked for water, the water didn’t come until we asked again at the end of the meal. Now, here’s the weriod part… Although we told her our order 3 times, and the orders took a while, our Bento boxes were wrong. It wasn’t that they were switched, they were completely wrong. I ordered the ramen & salmon combo box, and my mom ordered the teriyaki beef and CA roll bento. I received the teriyaki beef & my mom got prawns & something else. We also had to ask for a container several times. When I took care of the bill, the waitress threw out that look of concern when we left a tip. I left 10%. I usually dole out 20%. They were lucky my husband wasn’t there. The dessert choices looked yummy, but we weren’t up for anymore surprises.
I really hope they work out the service thing, because I loved the ramen.

We didn’t try the ramen but the different broths were fragrant when brought to the nearby tables. Instead, we tried two different bento boxes: chicken katsu and tonkatsu. The miso soup was generous, hot, and salty. The salad mix was combination of field greens and iceberg with a creamy, savory dressing. It also came with a generous portion of veggie tempura, one shrimp tempura, and two meat-​filled gyozas. The main for the bentos were crispy and juicy. They used lean/​white cuts of meats which was a nice surprise since most other places use dark meat and grisly cuts. It was a hefty box which can be shared but for less than $ 10 for each box, another meal from it is nice as well.
We also got a side order of a California roll and a salmon roll. They were well wrapped, fresh, and had a generous portion of seafood and avocado at a very low price point (8 pieces for less than $ 5).
The staff was friendly and efficient. It is a small place but can accommodate a few parties of 4 – 5 persons.
I think this will be my staple local Japanese place if the service and quality remain consistent on future visits.

We ordered edamame (can’t fuck that up), maguro (tuna on top of rice), gyoza (Japanese potstickers) and their Tokyo Roll (salmon & avocado).
Overall, this place is pretty legit for the price and location. The fish was decent quality, but the gyoza was on point, especially the dipping sauce. The rolls were a good size to fit in your mouth in one bite (about an inch or so across).
I would go back to this establishment.

Bought a Groupon so decided to come try this place. Very small place with not a lot of seats. It was pretty empty when I got there on a weekday at 7pm. Waitress was polite and kindly accepted my Groupon.
I come to a ramen place and order sushi. Sue me. I didn’t feel like eating ramen so I got a Kali Kali roll and a Rock and Roll. Both were delicious but the Kali Kali was my favorite. Fried nicely and sauce was tasty. I also HAD to try their Fried Ice Cream. I don’t know why but I trolled myself thinking it was mango ice cream inside… It’s vanilla. It was ok. I think the breading didn’t taste very good but they made it nice.
Already bought another Groupon for this place so I’ll be back… for more sushi!!! :)

3.5 stars.
I used to come here as a wee little kid before they remodeled and I’ve still been a loyal customer since. After the remodel, the place looks a lot better, cleaner, and more cozy, however, that’s only during the calm days unlike the weekends. I would say MAYBE 30 people capacity (if you’re lucky and you catch them on a good day). Even with that, you’d be crowded shoulder to shoulder at the tables no doubt. I would not recommend for parties or big groups of more than 4 people. I have seen servers come and go and so far I don’t have a favorite. For the most part, they’re trying their best from what I’ve seen. I’ve been given miso soup on the house for long wait times before.
My go-​to is usually their chirashi bowl. I’m a big fan of sashimi and their’s pass my expectations. The rice they use in the chirashi bowl is flavored and they add toppings like imitation crab and spicy tuna which I have never seen any other restaurant do before so that was a big deal to me. I’ve also had their ramen before as well. Okay flavor and consistency but I wouldn’t make it my go-​to for ramen.
3.5 stars for the food and portions, –1.5 stars for how long the food takes sometimes for to-​go orders and how crowded and rowdy the restaurant can get during weekends. If you don’t want your ears blown out from loud customers, don’t attend or even order for to-​go on weekends.

I’ll make this quick. Came here on a Groupon deal — $ 8 for $ 20, which is not bad to try out a new joint. Came here before the rush (of other Grouponers), got three bowls of Ramen, a Fire Tuna (spicy tuna) and a beer. Here’s how it went down:
Ramen: Inconsistent noodle. The noodle is of the cheaper variety, but the problem was that my noodles were undercooked by 3min and the others was by 2min. Not raw, but tough to chew. Broth was okay and I had the black garlic broth. Let’s call it a hint of garlic and there was nothing black about it using Maru Ichi as a reference. Also, the eggs were not cooked right. The yolk was dripping off like a thick paste. See photo.
Fire Tuna: The spicy tuna was not spicy and accompanied by (personally hated) mayo-​based sauce. That wasn’t the deal breaker however. The overcooked and mushy-​wet rice was deplorable. Rice quality is imperative to a roll and this was just… You cannot call it sushi. It looks like sushi, but this is not sushi. Shame. See photo.
They took the Fire Tuna off the bill and deducted the Groupon post tax/​Post SSF Health Surcharge. You’re not supposed to do it that way, but whatever. Take the extra buck, because I am never coming back and I suggest you don’t either. Ok, that wasn’t all that short after all.

Boyfriend took me here after he purchased a groupon deal. The quality and portions are worth the price! I saw a lot of the rolls were priced around $ 4-​$ 6, though we ordered the Takara roll.
Takara roll — It’s worth ordering for the price! The roll was huge even though we were sharing, but absolutely delicious! I want to go back just for the roll. The fish was seared just right, ingredients were plentiful, and it was a huge portion. 100%!
Pork katsu bento box — Also delicious, though nothing too special. Wish they gave the pork katsu sauce on the side, as they give too little sauce. Otherwise, portion was huge for the price tag.
Tonkotsu ramen — This one was my least favorite, though the boyfriend liked it. I thought the broth was too diluted, but at least it was flavorful. The cha siu (meat) was delicious! It just melts in your mouth.
Don’t be discouraged by the lack of parking. There is a lot in the 7 – 11 plaza and another lot behind the 7 – 11 plaza as well. Service could be more attentive, though it didn’t bother me too much. All in all, a pretty good restaurant that I’ll return to when I am craving for sushi rolls around the area, and don’t want my wallet to cry!

After driving past this place every day on my way to work, I finally dedicated a low-​key date night to try it out. We were pleasantly surprised by this little gem in our neighborhood. We ordered sushi and tempura, with complimentary hot tea for me and a (non-​complimentary) Kirin for my guy.
We ordered a salmon and avocado roll for me, a Takara roll to share, and I can’t remember the name of the other because I don’t care for eel. The menu mentions it, but the smoky taste of the Takara roll well exceeded our expectations. Reminiscent of the salmon at Kamu Sushi in SSF. My only complaint is the use of quite a bit of mayo and other sauces on the roll, but that’s a personal preference – my guy had no problem with it. My basic roll was simply delicious and the avocado was perfectly ripe. And small in comparison to the other rolls. You definitely get decent portions.
The service was attentive and friendly. This is the perfect little place to get our fix for Japanese food without having to leave our neighborhood. Can’t wait to go back and try the curry ramen!

Tiger sushi was really great and miso ramen was good too.
Sushi could be cut into smaller pieces. It was near impossible to eat one in 1 bite.
The srvice was quick and pleasant.
Very clean spot with tasty food and fast service.

Ramen — 4 out of 5 stars. Their roast pork needs to be chunks and not slices. For $ 1.50 extra, I expect two big pieces of pork. Then, it’s strange to put spinach in ramen. Otherwise, the rest of the ramen seem authentic with corn, seaweed, fungus.
Sushi — 2 out of 5 stars. It was bland. I had the 49er roll. For spicy tuna, I expect it to be spicy. It was mild. Then, the rice was bland and mushy.
Server was friendly, attentive, and fast.
Overall, 3.5 stars. Not bad for ramen near Daly City. I rather drive another 10 minutes and get better ramen elsewhere in Millbrae or San Mateo.
They have 10% off for first timers and a $ 10 for $ 15 voucher deal.

On a mission to try out every single ramen place there is. How did I not know there was a ramen shop close by Eggettes and Little Lucca’s? Well, time to give it a try.
The place is TINY (like 6 tables in all?) But that didn’t stop me from eating here. I was greeted warmly by the waiter. Their lunch menu was simple and didn’t seem to have too many options. I didn’t bother to ask whether there was the full menu so I went off of what they had.
I bought a groupon deal $ 10 for $ 15. I ordered the Tonkatsu ramen and Hamach roll. Not that I wanted to add anything more to the ramen, but I didn’t see any additional toppings on the menu. It would also be nice if they included what was actually in the ramen, but that’s okay, I have Unilocal pictures to help me.
Ramen arrives and the soup was HOT. The actual hot that could burn your tongue. Well that’s a first and I’m diggin’ this already. (FYI, I love hot soup). Broth was rich and creamy. It was really addicting, too. I sensed a bit oiliness to it, but nothing worth complaining. Ramen noodles were al dente and I’d probably put it at my top lists. Noodles were not clumped nor hard to eat. I was pleasantly surprised they served a runny egg, because not many places could do that. THUMBS UP! Chasu was just okay. Other ingredients in the ramen: spinach, corn, bamboo, and wood ear, the typical stuff. Maybe put in more so that my bowl doesn’t seem so empty after eating half of it, lol.
Hamachi roll: ⁴⁄₅ star. A little bit less rice and it would’ve been perfect. The portion of fish was really good and it tasted pretty fresh.
Throughout my meal, the waiter was really kind. She was the only waiter managing all the tables (not that there were many anyways, but nevertheless, good job). I did notice they were Chinese as I heard them speaking. People get disappointed when Chinese runs a Ramen place. On the contrary, they actually do a decent job. I read a lot of past reviews about their poor service and food quality. I don’t know how it was back then, but as of today, my experience here as been nothing short of great.