soup

Combining two of Japan's greatest strengths, a noodle-shop-owning electronics wizard has invented a robot that can make the perfect bowl of ramen.

It took the 60-year-old shop owner Yoshihira Uchida about 20 million yen and five years to develop the ramenbot. Now customers of his shop, Momozono Robot Ramen, in Minami-Alps, a town 90 miles from Tokyo, can customize their broth, adjusting everything from the levels of soy sauce and salt to the richness of the soup. There are reputedly 40 million different possible flavor permutations.