Abby goes to a ramen shop afterward, and the chef Maezumi and his wife Reiko, who do not speak English, tell her that they are closed.

Rushing back into the store, she begs him to teach her how to cook ramen.

She shows up late, in high heels and a dress, and is put to work scrubbing the toilet and cleaning pots and pans.

In the following weeks Maezumi only gives her cleaning work in the hopes that she quits, but she comes back.

Abby sees Maezumi crying over a collection of letters and photos from Paris.

Maezumi's mother tastes her ramen and tells her, in Japanese, that she is cooking with her head; when Abby confesses that there is only pain in her heart, Maezumi's mother advises that she should put tears in her ramen.

The Master arrives, and tastes the young man's ramen, sampling small bits of it, very sparingly.

The Master says Abby's noodles are good, but he cannot give her his blessing, saying that she needs more time and restraint.

Maezumi gives her the lantern that had hung outside his ramen shop for 45 years, and she takes it to America with her, where it is shown a year later outside her shop in New York City, appropriately named The Ramen Girl.

The shop hangs a photo of Maezumi and his wife with their son happily in Paris.

Film critic Don Willmott describes The Ramen Girl as "a vacuous but atmospheric analysis of the redemptive power of a good bowl of noodles" in which "The Karate Kid meets Tampopo meets Babette's Feast.