Imagine if Ridley Scott made a food movie: Blade Runner meets Tampopo, in which androids made your noodles under a futuristic cityscape built with neon and rain. Well, in Nagoya, Japan, a robot manufacturer has done almost that. Last month Kenji Nagoya, owner of a robot factory, opened Fuamen Ramen Noodle shop, at which robots make and serve the bowls of ramen. Watch the Reuters video.

The robots are programmed to boil the ramen, pour the soup into bowls, and sprinkle the toppings; humans are on hand to make the stock for the soup, take orders and handle money. The idea behind the shop was to showcase the new robot technology of Nagoya's robots, but Nagoya says there are some real advantages. Apparently robots are very good at timing the boiling of the noodles and measuring out very accurate amounts of toppings. They're also fast, taking 1 minute and 40 seconds per bowl. And they're good at cooking demos, which they perform for the customers during down time. Maybe Nagoya can program his robots to make boeuf Bourguignon. Somebody give Mel Gibson a cooking show.

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