Mini Garden was a downtown institution where, until recent years, those with a craving — day or late, late night — could get Hong Kong-style noodles with duck or won ton soup. So it was sad to see it change hands over the years and lose ground to startups and a more demanding clientele chasing novelty, not history.

To its credit, Lucky Belly, which sprouted up in that familiar intersection of Hotel and Smith streets, manages to look forward, even as a handful of dishes pay homage to the spirit of its Cantonese predecessor.

You can snack on shrimp gyoza ($7) big on flavors of cilantro and green onion, just the way I like shrimp won tons, but here modernized with the addition of edamame avocado purée and ponzu sauce. I’m not sure the purée adds much flavor, but I love avocado so welcome the stuff any time, anyplace.

There’s also pork belly bao ($7), a stand-in for the more familiar duck bao. Here the usual hoisin is splashed with sake, and with the addition of pickled cucumbers, the flavor was closer to sweet-sour pork. Part of the joy of the duck bao is biting into the crispy skin, so I missed that. If pork fat scares you, don’t look inside the bao, sturdier than that at most Chinese restaurants but still fluffy with the right touch of sweetness.

But make no mistake, there’s a new noodle in town. In place of the slender Chinese noodles that warmed bellies for nearly 40 years, Lucky Belly is home to ramen, with — for now — four options.

The menu is small, such that manager Dusty Grable, a partner in the endeavor, apologized, "Someday we might become a real restaurant."

I’d say it already is, which speaks to his professionalism. He and chef Jesse Cruz are both alumni of Formaggio Grill in Kailua and apparently learned well. I like that the menu is manageable — created to suit a bar specializing in beer and sake — and that they didn’t start out by overreaching. I see so many restaurateurs adding everything they want to a menu from day one, and it’s the customers who suffer when they see a dish on the menu that’s not available yet or the kitchen can’t produce the items in a timely way.

Diners have been impressed the moment they walk into the room, which has been completely transformed so that a handful of people have told me that they didn’t realize the space was so big. Nor do they remember the narrow aisle leading to the rest­rooms, which is now the site of a long bench and several tables for two. Bring a jacket in case you’re seated there. With air conditioning blasting at you from two directions, it can get chilly.

The building’s historic beautiful brick wall has finally been revealed. Who knew? Garish fluorescents have been replaced by diffuse lighting at night and natural light by day. It’s rather dim at night for food-spotting, so you’ll have to let your taste buds be your guide.

There are salads on the menu, such as roasted beet and spicy greens with goat cheese and pomegranate dressing ($9), but most will be distracted by meatier offerings of duck lumpia ($7), sweet soy-glazed oxtail dumplings ($7) and togarashi-spiced beef tartare ($11), brisket topped with a quail egg and served with toast points.

If you like playing Russian roulette with food, take your chances with shishito peppers ($3) wok-fried with sesame oil and a touch of yuzu and sprinkled with bonito flakes. They’re typically sweet, but stressful growing conditions are said to turn them hot, and you never know the heat level until you bite into one. Servers here say there’s usually one hot one in each batch of about a dozen, but we got only the sweet, which was a relief to me, having had a burning hot one at another gastropub recently. Others who don’t like spice have gotten six in an order.

Unless you’ve come for the bar, don’t over-order because the main attraction is the ramen, served in bowls you need to be a weightlifter to pick up.

The basic ramen is the Lucky Bowl ($8), with all the basic ingredients in every offerings: bean sprouts, soft steamed egg, wakame, sesame seeds, green onion and ginger.

Grilled togarashi shrimp and kim chee are added to the shrimp kim chee bowl ($12), geared toward those who like their ramen spicy.

Now that so many kitchens seem to be trying to one-up one another in machismo, meat rules in a beef eater’s dream called Beast Bowl ($14) with tender brisket, and short rib and oxtail won ton (which is plainer than the marinated appetizer oxtail dumplings).

But my favorite is the Belly Bowl ($12) with its melt-in-your-mouth combination of pork belly, smoked kurobuta bacon and sausage.

A vegetarian bowl is said to be in the works, and you can bet there will be more small plates. The restaurant is just warming up. 

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.