"Huan ying!" (Welcome!) cry the cooks from the open kitchen as yet another cluster of hopeful diners appears at the top of the stairs of the second-floor Toki Underground.

From its April opening, the Taiwanese-style ramen shop acquired a cult following that knows to be in line by 5 p.m. or risk an uncertain outdoor wait. There are fewer than 30 stools, all but a few squeezed in front of a narrow ledge that rings most of the room.

Strapping bowls of steaming noodles from Taipei-born, Tokyo- and Woodbridge-raised Erik Bruner-Yang are the lure, but the setting registers a 10 on the fun meter, too. Skateboards stand in for guardrails, interior shingles and footrests. Japanese anime art serves as wallpaper, and red paper lanterns dangle from faux tree branches, bathing the area in a dreamy glow. Meanwhile, the ribs of wood above your head suggest a place that has been around a very long time, which is precisely the tone Bruner-Yang, 27, wants to foster. "My father's noodle shop," imagines the son of a journalist. "Old World." For sure, no one would confuse Toki Underground, whose chef shops daily, with the cliches of P.F. Chang's.

With fewer than a dozen appetizers (mostly dumplings, the best of which are lightly fried) and bowls of ramen, the menu is an easy read. Each of the five regular soups has its merits; all but the vegetarian choice are based on a broth made with pork bones, which impart an earthy milkiness to the eating. The two ramen I tend to spoon into most often are curry chicken Hakata, floating crisp nuggets of spiced chicken and pickled ginger, and the meatless masumi, packed with a garden of vegetables including squash, seaweed and mushrooms, its broth dark and intense. Temper the heat with a silky side of tofu topped with shaved bonito. Keep dessert in mind: Snickerdoodles take well to chocolate and kimchi pepper flakes.

The food is meant to be slurped with libations, such as a smoky, bourbon-based Toki Monster. "It will be just a minute," the bartender says, for the kitchen to crisp the bite of pork belly that lands on my rim as a garnish.