Udon Shin Singapore Takashimaya SC – Good Time to Visit

Udon Shin Singapore Takashimaya has opened for a month or so and is still drawing in the crowds. Fortuitously, we managed to get in without waiting long. It seems that a good time to visit is at the tail end of the lunch period. Just before 2pm on a weekday, the line was short and we were seated within ten minutes.

Long Queues at New Udon Restaurant at Takashimaya Singapore

This is a picture taken a week after Shin Udon opened in Takashimaya in November 2025. On subsequent visits to the Orchard Road mall, we noticed that the queues had shortened somewhat but were still long at the start of lunch and dinner times.

On this occasion we were there just before 2pm and there were only a few people in the queue. Turnover was fast and we did not have to wait long to get into the restaurant. Do note the kitchen has a lunch break and the queue closes at 2pm.

Inside Udon Shin Takashimaya Restaurant in Singapore

Tokyo’s famous udon restaurant Udon Shin was established in 2011 in Shibuya. It is said that long queues of diners who wait up to three hours is not uncommon in the Tokyo outlet. We considered ourselves fortunate to be able to experience this restaurant on home ground without too long a wait.

As you can imagine, the 60-seater restaurant at B2 of Takashimaya Shopping Centre is quite fully packed. Small tables are placed close together. This is not a place for quiet conversations. The picture below shows a view of the communal dining table and kitchen which looked spacious and fitted with impressive gleaming machines.

Udon Shin Singapore Menu

Diners at the head of the queue were handed menus to be studied in advance. I think this step alone had increased the speed of decision making and thereby helped to improve the quickness of turnover. Here are a pictures of a few sample pages from the Udon Shin Singapore Menu at Takashimaya.

The pictures above are from the main part of the menu that contains various types of udon that have predetermined types of soup, toppings and condiments.

Build Your Own Shin Udon

What we found interesting was the last section of the menu which provides different types of base noodles that can be combined with different toppings and add-ons (picture below). We found this to be quite interesting. For our late lunch at Shin Takashimaya Singapore, we selected a Tempura Kake Udon ($29++) and a combination of a base hot kake udon ($11) with a few selected tempura toppings / add-ons.

Tempura Kake Udon

We saw this dish on many tables. This seems to be a classic udon and tempura combination. Kake udon is the udon in a lightly flavoured dashi broth, garnished with chopped green onions. The udon was clearly the star at our lunch at the Udon Shin Singapore restaurant. Its texture was chewy and springy. Coated with the light flavour of the soup, this could easily be eaten on its own.

Accompanying the noodles was a small plate of tempura – two prawns and four vegetables. We had high expectations but the prawn tempura was quite average. The vegetable ones had more flavour and texture.

Lunch at Udon Shin Singapore Restaurant – Conclusion

We were glad to have also chosen the basic udon to experiment with the other types of tempura available. The udon was similar to the kake udon served in the tempura set – very good.

The tempura items that we selected and tried were sweet potato ($7, picture below), pork chasu ($6), chicken thigh ($4) and fish cake ($3). Our favourite was the sweet potato while the fish cake was our least favourite as it was quite bland. The total cost of our lunch for two pax at the new Udon Shin Singapore Takashimaya was $71.94 (including service charge and GST). On a future visit, I think we would simply go for a basic kake udon with one or two of the toppings to bring down the cost to less than $20 per person and enjoy substantially the same experience.

Ratings:
Food: 3
Service: 3
Value: 3
Atmosphere: 3
Overall Rating: 3 TOPs

Udon Shin Takashimaya Singapore
#B2-32 Takashimaya S.C 
391 Orchard Rd
Singapore 238872. 

Opening Hours: 11:00 am to 2:00 pm ; 5pm to 7pm

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