Original Ramen Burger noodles into Koreatown

If there was one food trend that’s probably been exhausted in Los Angeles, it’s ramen: The savory Japanese noodle soup has created a coast-to-coast phenomenon and endeared itself to Angelenos in particular. On the other side of the country, former computer programmer-turned-ramen chef Keizo Shimamoto sandwiched a premium ground chuck patty between two “buns” made of freshly cooked ramen noodles. The creation, dubbed the ramen burger, was first served by Shimamoto at Brooklyn’s famous food market Smorgasburg in the summer of 2013.

Shimamoto’s ramen burger started a craze in New York comparable to that of Dominique Ansel’s cronut, and it was only a matter of time before Shimamoto himself appeared on an episode of Conan and became a darling of the New York media. Los Angeles area residents had to wait a full year enduring knock-offs and wannabes before Shimamoto brought his ramen burger to the West Coast, but the wait is finally over. The Original Ramen Burger opened right next to the Lock and Key Bar in the heart of Koreatown earlier this summer, and reactions have been mixed.

Calling The Original Ramen Burger’s storefront “spartan” would be a massive overstatement: The shack amounts to a literal hole in the wall, where diners form a queue to order and pick up at the same window. There’s nary a place to sit, as diners are either expected to eat the burgers standing up or in their cars.

As for the burgers themselves, The Original Ramen Burger offers three varieties: the original, which is a USDA prime ground chuck patty topped with a “secret shoyu glaze,” scallions, baby arugula all sandwiched between two handmade “ramen buns.” The “La Sriracha Macha” takes all of the aforementioned ingredients and adds La Sriracha Macha, a Los Angeles-based take on the famous hot pepper sauce.  La Sriracha Macha has a smoky flavor profile that isn’t found in the Huy Fong Foods version, and bottles of the hot sauce (which are difficult to find elsewhere) are available for sale at The Original Ramen Burger. Perhaps most intriguing is the rotating “special” ramen burger, which promises a creative take on the ramen burger to be rotated from time to time.

The burger itself is a bit of a textural anomaly. Unlike previous, lesser iterations of the ramen burger in California, the ramen “bun” holds up its structural integrity instead of being a sloppy mess of noodles. Shimamoto’s bun is a solid disc of Sun Brand ramen noodles gently caramelized on one side, which gives it a crispy sheen that makes it suitable for use in a sandwich. The result is a visually pleasing “burger bun” with a puzzling texture. There is no way in which this textural amalgam of semi-chewy ramen noodles — that is simultaneously not quite crunchy where it is caramelized — could be considered pleasant.

The burger patty is serviceably moist thanks to its 75/25 beef-to-fat ratio, and juices will have a hard time being contained in the restaurant’s creative, Chinese bao-style wrappers. Crunchy, chopped scallions lend the proceedings an added crunch and give an extra punch to the secret shoyu glaze, which has the potential to be an explosion of umami if it weren’t for it being so sparingly used. Instead, little pockets of the glaze create pleasant bites of the burger, which is ultimately marred by the awkward texture of the ramen buns.

The shack also offers a variety of fry options, including garlic fries, cheese fries and miso seaweed fries — it’s here that The Original Ramen Burger is surprisingly good. The miso seaweed fries aren’t just a hacky attempt at American-Japanese junk food fusion — they actually work incredibly well together, with the deep, nutty flavor of Japanese nori lending the fries an added element of sheer addictiveness.

All considered, The Original Ramen Burger is basically a lot of hype for what’s actually just a little bit of burger. It’s hard to take the hype seriously when the entire reason for the dish’s novelty is exactly what’s wrong with the dish: if Shimamoto’s burger was on a nice buttered brioche bun instead of his handmade “ramen bun,” it actually could have been better, and that’s perhaps the biggest shame. This isn’t to say the ramen burger isn’t worth a try — just don’t forget to pick up an order or five of those delicious miso-seaweed french fries.