Hungry City - Ganso in Downtown Brooklyn - NYTimes.com GANSO does not announce itself. It is half-hidden on a bland tangent off the Fulton Street Mall in Downtown Brooklyn, at a midpoint between Armani Exchange and IHOP. You will know it by the clusters of people lurking on the sidewalk, waiting to warm their faces over bowls of ramen. Inside is a geometry of raw cedar, angular booths roomy enough for three to squeeze in on each side and a long banquette lined with blocky (and surprisingly comfortable) stools. In the back, counter seats and smaller booths built for two leave the narrowest of aisles for the servers to run and run. The chef, Rio Irie, a native of Japan, was second in command to Tadashi Ono at Matsuri, which is now shuttered. He may be spied in the glassed-in kitchen, looking slightly meditative even at the height of service, a pair of chopsticks thrust into the back pocket of his jeans. One of the owners, Harris Salat, is a Brooklyn-born devotee of Japanese soul food and a co-author of three Japanese cookbooks (two of which happen to be sitting on my kitchen shelf). He plies the floor, bussing bowls and thanking diners for coming, while Portishead loops blurrily on the speakers. The menu reads as a catalog of straightforward pleasures: gyoza (pot stickers), pork buns, wings. Then the gyoza ($7) arrive, upside down, their browned undersides laced together by a frill of translucent, crackly dough. Flip them over and note the scrupulous, verging-on-obsessive-compulsive pleats. Inside, they burst with juicy pork and garlic chives, and barely require the accompanying chile-soy sauce. Lunar-white bao buns come with pork belly and a slap of kimchi, mined with jalapeño for good measure ($9), and tonkatsu, panko-breaded pork brushed with a sauce akin to Worcestershire and planted atop chile mayonnaise, a meld of flavors that evokes, in the best way, a Big Mac's special sauce ($9). Chicken wings ($8) are a feat of engineering, the crust blistered and coppery, the sauce a mere evanescence of sweetness. Why, then, on a recent evening was the fried chicken ($8), confetti-size pieces of minced chicken leg presented in a dainty basket, absent all trace of seasoning? Where in the salt-grilled mackerel ($10) was the salt? A tendency toward overdelicacy extends to the ramen. While the noodles have tooth, the broths are puzzlingly reticent. You detect layers of flavor, complicated equations of alkalinity and suspended fat, and yet, and yet: they have nuance and dimension, but no impact. Of the five variations of ramen available (most of them made with a stock of pork and chicken bones), only the spicy miso, given body by a tare (seasoning base) of coarsely ground red miso, offers flagrant pleasure. Still, they are so meticulously made, you wonder for a moment if you're missing something. Some ramen broths detonate at first spoonful, then fizzle out halfway through; others start off meek and turn carnal. Ganso aspires to the latter. After my initial disappointment, I kept eating, idly, expecting nothing, and as I dragged up broth from the bottom of the bowl, the flavors began to deepen and assert themselves. What I had thought nebulous took on a distinct point of view. But some of my dining companions never got that far, abandoning hope a few spoonfuls in. No MSG is used, no artificial flavor boosters. And no condiments are on the table. A house-made chile sauce is available on request. There is an austerity to the proceedings, a sense that something is being asked of us, the diners, as well. Patience, perhaps. Still, if you demand immediate gratification, there is the glory of the soft-boiled egg, halved and afloat in the crimson-speckled broth. The yolk is the color of old gold, the white delicate and stained sepia from a bath of mirin and soy. It has a texture not quite firm nor runny, akin to crème brûlée, and a lingering salty finish. It is proof that someone in the kitchen is obsessing over details, and can turn up the volume when he wants to. Ganso 25 Bond Street (Livingston Street), Downtown Brooklyn, (718) 403-0900, gansonyc.com. RECOMMENDED Gyoza, Rio's wings, buta kimchi buns, kari kari buns, root vegetable kinpira, spicy miso ramen. HOURS Monday to Saturday, noon to 2:30 p.m. (takeout only), 5:30 to 10 p.m. WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Entrance is level with sidewalk. Restroom is spacious and has a handrail.