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Ramen Heads Movie

I’ve been on a Ramen movie kick lately, and while Tampopo remains my favorite, Ramen Heads (2017) feels like it continues where The God of Ramen (2013) leaves off.

Ramen Heads focuses primarily on Osamu Tomita the chef at Chuka Soba Tomita Ramen near Matsudo Station in Chiba. Tomita-san was an apprentice of Kazuo Yamagishi, the chef featured in “The God of Ramen”. Just like his former master, Tomita also makes tsukemen (dipping noodles). He is so good at it that he won the “TRY Ramen Grand Prize” for being the top ramen chef four years in a row.

I have great respect for his approach to ramen and food in general.

In the film he says, “What makes it interesting is that we can offer a delicious meal starting at just $8. Meals priced at $500 are bound to be great. But our goal is to create an amazing experience for just $8.” The idea is “I’m gonna change the way you think about ramen.”

His obsession with creating the perfect broth is only matched by his dedication to the noodles. For him the noodles are the most important part of the dish, and the factor that he optimizes for is “slurp-ability”. His noodles are made “a bit longer than the average type. If the noodles are too short, they’ll get slurped up all in one shot. We want people to really slurp the hell out of our noodles…so they’re longer, thicker, and smoother.”

People show up as early as 6:30 am to wait. Reservations open at 7 am and you are given an approximate seating time that could be several hours later. The doors open at 11 am with up to 120 people in line by then.

Although the film focuses primarily on Tomita, it also includes other ramen masters and other ramen joints. You may want to have a notebook handy to keep track of all the top-level places that are mentioned.

There is a part in the film where two other master ramen chefs join Tomita to create a special 10 year anniversary ramen. These other two master ramen chefs are Shota Iida of Ramenya Iida Shouten in Kanagawa, and Yuki Onishi of Japanese Soba Noodles Tsuta in Yoyogi-Uehara.

The intense dedication these chefs have to ramen is inspirational. Applying a single-minded focus to the perfection of a specific, singular food is something that makes Japanese cooking and restaurants unique.

I can guarantee you’ll be hungry after watching this movie. You can watch the trailer here.

Talking About Sake

I’ve written about the different varieties/styles of sake before. But recently, I was at an izakaya in Oshiage (Tokyo), specializing in nihonshu (sake), and the owner said he dislikes when nihonshu is rated and ranked in isolation because depending on which food it’s paired with, different flavors in the drink will be emphasized.

To prove his point he served a nihonshu that didn’t taste particularly sweet on its own, but once it was paired with a small bite of slightly salty eel, the drink tasted quite different with a noticeable sweetness being evident.

He also mentioned that if you are going to be trying various nihonshu, it’s best to start with sweeter ones and then move on to more dry ones as going in the opposite direction will cause the sweet ones not to taste as good as they should.

Another tip is if you find yourself at a sake/nihonshu place, and don’t know what to order, go with a Junmai Daiginjo (the highest standard for sake, but still generally affordable), and you should be good to go.

JOMO

I’m a big believer in not trying to optimize every second of my adventure in another country. I love to leave space for serendipitous experiences, time to get lost and enjoy unexpected moments. I’ve found these are inevitably the best, most cherished memories of every trip.

The pressure we put upon ourselves to experience everything we think we should suddenly becomes more important than the experiences themselves. Ironically, the things we often look back on the most fondly are the ones that were not optimized, streamlined, or rushed.

Every itinerary must conform to the laws of time and space, no matter how much we may not want it to, and the reality is that Japan has more things than you could possibly do on any single vacation.  

My strongest piece of travel advice is to go for your own reasons, not for your friends, relatives, acquaintances, Instagram profile, or whatever other external thing messes with your decision-making.

Who cares if you get the photo at the top of the escalator just inside the building with all the mirrors? It may look cool on your favorite social media app and your friends may comment on it, but will it have any nostalgic value or intrinsic enjoyment? This is an important question to keep in mind and something I’ve discussed previously in regards to how we think about travel and even photos.

When we focus on the moment, the most basic interaction can become the most memorable part of our trip.

The conversation with the older lady who runs the small coffee shop down the street from your hotel might be the highlight of visiting Kyoto. The interest she shows in you and your family, the stories she tells about her daughter, and the way she treats her regular customer who comes in with a Pomeranian who receives very special treatment. The Pom gets its own little dish of milk that it drinks while sitting on its owner’s lap. 

This slice-of-life experience that started as just getting some morning coffee becomes a daily ritual for the several days you’re in town. And when you leave, it’s sad to leave Kyoto because it is a truly beautiful and enchanting city, but it’s even more sad to leave your new friend who runs the small cafe, whose curiosity about you and whose kindness you will never forget.

This is what I travel for.

If I’d over-planned, trying to squeeze the maximum amount of sights, sounds, and meals out of every moment in Kyoto, I wouldn’t have had the patience to sit there and listen to this lady tell me her family stories, and watch her make syphon coffee (which looks akin to magic), and soak in the atmosphere of her shop with its weathered wood counters, low lighting, and attention to detail. 

It’s this type of experience that makes me think about what it would be like to live in Kyoto. I can’t wait to go back again and visit my new friend.

The most clicked link from last week was for our sponsor, YenLoans.

The 2nd most clicked link from last was for one of my all-time favorite Japanese TV shows, Million Yen Women.

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