In this wonderfully inventive comedy, a young widow (Miyamoto) intent on learning how to make the perfect noodle soup meets Goro (Yamazaki), a gruff truck driver in a cowboy hat who happens to be a master foodie. With the stranger's help, she's inspired to persevere and make her ramen-noodle café the tastiest in Tokyo.

Deftly satirizing the culture of affluence in 1980s Japan, and cleverly alluding to genre classics like "Shane" and "The Seven Samurai," "Tampopo" is by turns hilarious, sensual, touching, and tragic. While several unrelated food vignettes are interspersed in the story, which keeps the viewer slightly (but agreeably) off-balance, two scenes alone will stay with me always: the young girls learning to eat Western-style spaghetti, and the two lovers sharing an egg yolk. Food and movie lovers should not miss the unique treat that is "Tampopo."