In Japan, there is a wonderful ramen shop where people wait hours just to eat at.
That ramen shop is Tomita Ramen located in Matsudo, Chiba and the highest rated ramen shop on the Ramen Database. It has attracted ramen enthusiasts from all over the world and is the subject of Koki Shigeno’s documentary, “Ramen Heads”.
And “Ramen Heads” is now available on DVD courtesy of Kino Lorber.
A documentary that spotlights on Osamu Tomita, Japan’s reigning king of ramen, “Ramen Heads” gives insight of the dedication and the approach that Tomita puts into his restaurant and its ingredients.
For the most part, he has a daily ritual and when he’s not feel right or when he is unable to make it to the restaurant to check on the ingredients, then his restaurant doesn’t open.
Clearly, Tomita, who has won awards. for his ramen shows no signs that he is growing wary, if anything, he is always experimenting and trying to achieve perfection.
A documentary which took 15 months for filmmaker Koki Shigeno to shoot and also research various ramen chefs, you also get to see the different approaches other ramen chefs in Japan have towards ramen. What drives them? What flavors they want to achieve? And also how they would like their patrons to eat ramen, including slurping!
When it comes to documentaries covering different areas of Japanese cuisine, I’m always interested because I am a person who will travel to Japan in order to try many restaurants, sample the dish and I eventually write about it on my blog.
From a coffee tour throughout Japan, trying cuisine of the local area I visited, trying different sushi restaurants and also trying the best ramen.
And for those who want to try the best, there is no doubt that filmmaker Koki Shigeno was looking to spotlight the top ramen chef in Japan.
It’s important to emphasize that “Ramen Heads” takes the approach of focusing primarily on the ramen champ, Osamu Tomita. As David Gelb did for his film, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” and focusing on the greatest sushi chef, Jiro Ono.
While I wished for it to cover a plethora of ramen chefs and the history of some of these restaurants, I’m still satisfied with the documentary. Tomita is a fascinating ramen chef as he has no qualms sharing with people what he puts into his broth, how long he lets them age and the mixtures involved and also going into the four different flours to make his ramen noodles
Some may feel he is revealing too much but he is constantly evolving and making himself and the food he serves better and better. There is no true drama or no antagonist featured who is trying to challenge Tomita’s restaurant. This is not that type of documentary.
The documentary briefly touches upon Kazuo “The God of Ramen” Yamagishi (the long time and late chef of Taishoken in Minami-Ikebukuro), a chef known for creating tsukemen, who Tomita learned from. In Japan, there was drama involving who would be the successor to Yamagishi’s Taishoken restaurants before he passed and because many chefs, like Tomita, who learned from him, the Taishoken chefs are not all in harmony post-Yamagishi’s death, so that would be an interesting story for people to see internationally if one is interested in conflict.
But this is straight out a documentary about one man’s dedication in making the best ramen/tsukemen.
Tomita opened his restaurant in 2006 and his restaurant has been raved to have the best tsukemen in the world (a major nod to the late Yamagishi, but also, you can’t help but be proud of what Tomita accomplished.
You get small coverage of other ramen chefs and their approach which was good.
But personally, as a ramen fan who travels far to try the best ramen, I was fascinated by this film to learn about Tomita and his process and also his perspective towards making ramen and tsukemen. More than likely, I will travel to Matsudo to try it for myself, after watching this film.
People may feel a bit standoffish by learning about the lines that people wait to get into Tomita’s restaurant but whether it’s 1-3 hours (1 hour is my longest waiting in line for a ramen restaurant, which pales in comparison of me waiting more than six hours for a sushi restaurant in Japan), in Japan, if you want to try the best, waiting in line at a restaurant in Japan is common.
Overall, if you are a ramen enthusiast, “Ramen Heads” is a documentary worth checking out!
