This restaurant is an upstairs/downstairs affair—two different places with two separate entrances—but both offer authentic Japanese specialties. Downstairs is the tiny ramen noodle house, serving the city’s best ramen in a 40-seat, sparsely decorated joint that lets you concentrate on slurping up one of five broths, meat-based or vegetable, filled with aged wheat noodles and topped with a bouquet of briefly stir-fried garnishes. On the second floor, which you reach via an outside staircase, is the larger izakaya, or Japanese tavern. The decorative woodwork and Japanese fabrics in this dimly lit bar and grill lend an exotic feel, which tastes from the menu only amplify. You might try grilled avocado with fresh wasabi, spicy tuna with crispy rice, miso salmon with endives and citrus dressing, or the Wagyu beef tartare. Both upstairs and downstairs are always busy and noisy.