Taku Sushi & Ramen

A table at Taku rarely orders one cuisine. One person wants a bowl of pork-rich ramen, someone across the table wants salmon sashimi and a torched roll, and the menu is built so that neither has to give way. A full ramen list and a full sushi list run side by side, with teriyaki plates, dumplings, sashimi combos, and party trays filling the gaps between them. The Victoria Avenue kitchen sits a short walk from Clifton Hill and the Falls Avenue crowds, and it has staked itself on breadth: a single Japanese menu wide enough that a group can sit down without first negotiating where to eat. That is the practical promise of the place, and most of what the kitchen does flows from it.

The ramen runs deeper than the genre's usual one or two bowls. Tonkotsu arrives creamy and pork-forward, layered with cha-shu, naruto, menma, a soft egg, wood ear mushroom, green onion, and sesame. The Red Lobster Ramen loads a bowl with lobster tail, mussel, and fish ball. Beef Miso comes built on sliced beef and sprouts, Dan Dan Men leans into sesame and miso with a low hum of heat, and a vegetarian bowl carries vegetable gyoza, corn, and menma for the diner who needs one. This is a section with genuine range rather than a single hero bowl, and that breadth is the tell of a kitchen that expects ramen to be half the reason people walk in, not a courtesy listing beside the sushi.