Keizo Shimamoto is in some ways a victim of his own success. The 38-year-old Japanese-American is best known for creating the Ramen Burger, which was dubbed the “fad food of the millisecond” back in 2013 and yet is still going strong, with people lining up at his Smorgasburg pop-up locations across New York City for a taste. The burger’s runaway success has obscured the fact that Shimamoto is not just some guy who came up with the zany idea to use ramen noodles as a hamburger bun, but a dedicated ramen enthusiast who gave up everything to move to Japan to pursue his dream of running a ramen shop. Today, September 27, Shimamoto is opening up his prep kitchen in Queens to the public with a “permanent pop-up” of his Ramen Shack concept, taking him one big step closer to making that dream a reality.

I first started following Shimamoto’s blog, Go Ramen, back in 2009. At the time, he was one of a very small handful of bloggers who wrote in English about ramen in Japan. In April of that year, Shimamoto traveled across the country, eating a mind-boggling 55 bowls of ramen in 28 days, documenting every single bowl. That trip inspired him to quit his job as a computer programmer in order to apprentice at the renowned Ivan Ramen in Tokyo, after which he went on to run the critically acclaimed Bassanova—a Tokyo spot that now has an outpost in New York's Chinatown—for three years. But it wasn’t his remarkable quest that kept me coming back to his blog, nor was it his unlikely success; it was the fact that even after 18-hour shifts in the back of a ramen shop, Shimamoto would still go out and have another bowl of the good stuff.

The Classic Shoyu ramen at Ramen Shack. Courtesy Keizo Shimamoto

All that ramen-consumption has paid off: Shimamoto says that every ramen bowl he has ever eaten serves as inspiration for his own creations. And the proof is in the bowls he’s putting out. It’s something of an open secret among ramen enthusiasts that Shimamoto’s Ramen Shack pop-ups offer up the best ramen in New York City, if not the country, and the menu is a testament to his versatility. His meaty tonkotsu broths are every bit as good as his more delicate shio and shoyu broths, and his tsukemen—an underrepresented style in which cold noodles are dipped into hot broth—is unrivaled. But what stands out most is Shimamoto’s attention to detail, which is evident in every element of the bowls, from how he crushes the noodles with his hands before boiling, which is supposed to increase the chew, to how each slice of roasted pork is painted with a glaze and then torched before serving. But perhaps where it is most clear is in the filigree-thin slices of green onion, a small but absolutely crucial detail that is woefully absent from most bowls of ramen in the city.

While the "permanent pop-up" is in part meant to add an income stream during the winter months, when Ramen Burger sales typically fall from their summer peak, it is clear that the shack serves primarily as a creative outlet. Modeled on the small Japanese mobile food carts known as yatai, the shack itself is not much more than a rudimentary wooden counter with a roof, installed so as to seem a window on Shimamoto's commercial kitchen—a kind of chef's table with a D.I.Y. aesthetic. “What I love about Ramen Shack is that it lets me get creative with all the ingredients I use,” Shimamoto says, and nowhere is this more evident than in his “Dirty Shoyu,” a more or less traditional bowl in the mold of Tokyo shoyu ramen, spiked with a paste made out of fried dried sardine heads. It is a remarkable dish, one that is entirely distintive even as it nods to tradition, and it serves as a perfect example of Shimamoto’s playful style.

For visitors to Tokyo, Shimamoto recommends three shops in particular that influenced him heavily: Saikoro in Nakano, Motenashi Kuroki in Akihabara, and the legendary Taishoken in Eifukucho. For those in the United States, the closest approximation of the best ramen in Japan is available 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesday through Friday (for now), in Long Island City.