On an international flight recently, we watched Ramen Heads, a documentary based on arguably the best ramen chef in the world, Osamu Tomita of Chuka Tomita Soba Noodles in Matsudo Chiba. What effect can a bowl of noodles and soup have on a culture? A rather strong one, it seems, as Tomita takes the viewer across five other ramen joints, delving into trade secrets, ingredients and legacy.

Huge pots simmer for days, deepening the broth as the flavours mature. Tomita relies on his taste buds, adding and subtracting ingredients like fish and whole pig heads. And each day, he mixes different broths to be served with handmade noodles. In the film, people line up at 5 am to get a seat at 6 am, which is when the restaurant opens to serve what started off as a worker's meal. The plot leads up to Tomita planning a 10th anniversary meal. He ropes in Shota Iida, regarded as the number one ramen chef in the Kanagawa prefecture, and Yuki Onishi, the chef-owner of Tsuta, the first ramen shop to receive a Michelin star.We land in a European country hungry for Ramen. As a friend once joked, there is, of course, instant ramen everywhere.