Here's an obvious but often neglected rule: Never see foodie movies — films that revolve around the preparation and consumption of scrumptious-looking food — on an empty stomach. Watching Gabriel Axel's Oscar-winning Danish movie "Babette's Feast" (1987) — the "Citizen Kane" of foodie movies — long after a skimpy breakfast, I was in agony, though somehow able to restrain myself from bolting the screening room. Soon after the credits rolled, though, I had one of the most heavenly bowls of ramen I ever tasted. (In my starved condition, I would have said the same thing about a Big Mac.)
Mitsuhiro Mihara's "Shiawase no Kaori (Flavor of Happiness)" does not rank as high as "Babette's Feast" in my foodie movie list. Perhaps I've been jaded by the endless procession of Japanese TV shows, dramas and films devoted to food and its preparers, which are part of a three-decade "gourmet boom" that shows no sign of ending.
The cults that have grown up around ramen, gyoza (Japanese dumplings) and other Japanese comfort foods strike me as overblown. The difference between a good and a great bowl of noodles is like the difference between a good and great hamburger — noticeable, but not worth waiting two hours in line for.