Occasionally a chef will do a pop-up in a borrowed kitchen to preview a new restaurant. But Ivan Orkin, the first American chef to open his own ramen shop in Tokyo, has had months of trial runs with his more casual Slurp Shop in the Gotham West Market. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” he said as he was showing off his nearly finished Lower East Side restaurant, called Ivan Ramen. “This place was supposed to come first and the Slurp Shop would be the spinoff.”  The inevitable New York construction delays affected progress in the Lower East Side space, which used to be Ed’s Lobster Bar Annex. So the shop in the Gotham West Market, set in an apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen, was ready for business first, opening late last year.  The heart of the new restaurant, which will open May 9, is the ramen counter and bar at the rear, with a pass-through open kitchen. Above the counter is a bright comic-strip mural titled “The Art of the Slurp” that illustrates how to eat ramen. High tables fill the space. There is also a garden anchored by a wall with a huge and colorful mosaic, a homage to ramen, and more seating in the front half of the restaurant. The place has a total of 60 seats.  To show the breadth of ramen noodles, there is relatively little overlap in the menus on the Lower East Side and at Gotham West. The Slurp Shop has a limited list of mostly ramen and rice bowls. Downtown there will be no rice bowls, but a broader menu, with five kinds of ramen. Customers can request add-ons like egg, pork, roast tomato and chile garlic oil. A couple of mazemen ramen, a style that’s not as soupy, are also on the menu, including one with four cheeses that could be accused of infringing on mac and cheese. Mr. Orkin’s homemade ramen include whole wheat and rye, part of the chef’s unconventional approach that shook things up a bit in Tokyo, where he opened his first of two ramen restaurants in 2007.  There will be cold starters like preserved hen and duck eggs and a Little Gem salad that has Caesar written all over it. Other appetizers are fried chicken hearts and livers; fried shrimp with smoked chile; and tofu Coney Island, which suggests a hot dog. Some chef’s specials are braised ox tongue; dirty rice made with monkfish liver; and musubi, a rice-cake snack that Mr. Orkin will serve topped with roast pork. And to wash it all down, there will be beer, wine and sake. Ivan Ramen, 25 Clinton Street (East Houston Street), 646-678-3859, ivanramen.com.
After long construction delays, Ivan Ramen will offer a deeper menu than its sibling at Gotham West Market.