So this is a Japanese comedy that’s mostly about a ramen restaurant. Basically, this woman has a restaurant that’s not very successful, and a passing trucker decides to teach her how to make it great, recruiting in different teachers — a broth guy, a noodle guy, a hospitality guy, a decorating guy — to teach her about different parts of making ramen.

There are training montages, there are early disappointments, working through it, kind of all the beats of a sports movie in an off-kilter way, and it probably isn’t much of a spoiler to say that she finally makes excellent ramen and her restaurant is a huge success.

But what’s weird is, mixed along with this main plot, there are a lot of times when the camera will drift off and follow some randos as they have a little food-related scene. There’s a thing where a woman is teaching a class how to eat western food and is explaining about how you should eat spaghetti silently rather than slurping it (as, if this movie is to be believed, is the customary way you eat ramen). There’s a weird dentistry thing; there’s a scene where a scam artist is trying to scam another scam artist over dinner; there’s a scene where a man dies in a shootout and his last words are this speech about how to eat wild boars in yam season. And weirdest of all, there’s this food-based sex scene with a truly obscene use of an egg yolk.

Anyway, it’s quirky and charming and fun, and not much like any other comedy I’ve seen. Recommended.