Although I love ramen, I didn’t start out thinking, “I want to make a documentary about ramen” or to profile a famous ramen master. The film found me gradually. One day, a Japanese friend asked if I wanted to go camping up in Niigata Prefecture where the master of his favorite ramen shop and some of the regulars were planning to dig wild mountain yams. “A ramen master who hangs out with his customers on the weekends?” That sounded very intriguing. So, we went to meet the master at his restaurant, Bizentei in central Tokyo. And as we made plans for our upcoming adventure, I experienced his delicious ramen for the first time. Bizentei’s signature bowl is soy-based with a light and clear pork bone and chicken fat soup, curly noodles, and topped with a few soy-marinated bamboo shoots, a bit of green komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach) and a few slices of a one-of-a-kind, slow-cooked, soy-marinated chashu pork. It’s a classic, oldfashioned bowl of “Tokyo-style” ramen. And yet, it was not like any I had tasted before.

The mountain yam foraging was hard work but a wonderful experience. The master and his friends were unassuming and welcoming, even though my Japanese was terrible. After that, I started going to Bizentei to have ramen a few times a month and I was touched by how the master, his wife Kazuko, and their diverse community of regulars made me feel at home there. And I was enthralled by the atmosphere, particularly at night, when it is more like a lively izakaya than a ramen shop, with the gregarious after work drinking crowd in full swing. It felt a bit like stepping back in time to the Shōwa Era that I recognized from some of my favorite classic Japanese films by Ozu, Kurosawa, Naruse, and of course, Itami’s Tampopo.

Over the years, I was invited to join the master and his regulars on other weekend adventures – flounder fishing off the coast of Chiba, making pizza in his homemade outdoor oven at his small country garden plot. I had been feeling the itch to make a film in Japan for quite some time, and one day it hit me that it should be about this experience – this man, these adventures, this restaurant, and this unique community of regulars who gather there. I hope viewers might enjoy watching the film as much as I did making it. And I hope that viewers might experience some of what I experienced. Except for the taste. That ramen… For that, you’ll have to visit Bizentei. If you find yourself in Tokyo, seek it out. The master is eager to meet you.

John Daschbach
Come Back Anytime