Ramen Heads

I found my way to Afuri in Sendagaya a while back and basically never left. The menu is small and I know it backwards. There’s a particular yuzu ramen they make that I still think about when I’m not sitting at the counter—the broth is bright and clean, and the noodles have this texture that most places fuck up. Which is why people spend their lives making it.

Ramen spent a long time in the West as student food. The cheap instant stuff you bought in bulk when you were broke. In Japan it’s always been something different: a craft, a point of pride, a tradition people guard carefully. The gap between how it’s perceived in different parts of the world is kind of interesting. Same dish, completely different weight.

There’s a documentary called Ramen Heads now. Koki Shigeno, Arata Oshima, and Yusuke Kamata made it. They interviewed Osamu Tomita, a ramen chef who clearly gives a shit about what he does. The film is about why ramen matters—why those small choices in technique and ingredient change the entire bowl. It’s shot with the kind of care the subject actually deserves.

It’s at food festivals right now. Probably coming to streaming at some point. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m curious what someone like Tomita thinks about after spending most of his life making the same bowl over and over. That kind of focus usually means he’s figured out something worth knowing.

The documentary probably won’t teach me anything I haven’t already figured out at the counter. But it might explain why I keep going back.