I enjoyed "Ramen Girl". It is not so bad considering the miss-communication between Abby and Maezumi. I don't know how English subtitles works (because The DVD I got has no option of English subtitles) and I'm wondering how non-Japanese people catch the miss-communication and the irritation of each side.
And I also watched (and enjoyed much) the Tampopo again and found "Ramen Girl" was omitted some of tactics to cook Ramen because Tampopo already showed them.
According to the liner notes of the "Ramen Girl" DVD, the director of "ramen Girl" was inspired by the movie "Tampopo".
I strongly recommend you (if you watch "Ramen Girl") to enjoy Tampopo which is filmed 25 years ago based on the famous Cowboy movie "Shane".
In Tampopo, you can find "Yamazaki, Tsutomu" (also featured in "Ramen Girl" as master of ramen master and Academy Winner "Departures"), "Watanabe, Ken" (featured in "Last Samurai"), "Yakusho, Kouji" (featured in "Shall We Dance?" and "Sayuri").