Shango Tonyamachi Honten

**Order the Shango-fu once.** Every other pasta on the menu is competent, but the cutlet-over-meat-sauce plate is the dish the town is known for and the one the restaurant was built on. Try it before ordering something more conventional. **Portions are the local joke.** Standard sizes here are large, and larger sizes exist. If you intend to eat anything else that day, order one dish between two rather than one each. **Closing days shift around holidays.** Mondays are the rest day, but a national-holiday Monday is a trading day and the following Tuesday closes instead. The second Tuesday of the month is also closed. Check the calendar rather than assuming. **There are branches.** Several other Shango locations operate around Takasaki, including roadside ones with easier parking. The Tonyamachi shop is the head restaurant, but if you are driving through, a branch serves the same food. **Fit it around the station.** Takasaki-Tonyamachi is one stop north of Takasaki on the Joetsu Line, which makes this an easy stop when changing trains rather than a detour.