It's summer: You're not supposed to have an appetite. All you feel like is eating noodles? Welcome to the club. Here's one place where I've been finding nourishment in this most difficult of seasons.
In the muggy heat of a Tokyo evening, six or seven minutes feels like an awful long way to walk just for a bowl of noodles. But the red glow of the aka-chōchin lantern hanging outside Marusen Seimen is like a homing beacon drawing me in from a distance.
It's worth the walk at any time of year. Marusen (the seimen part just means "noodle maker") is far from your run-of-the-mill ramen counter. Marusen's specialty is Hakata noodles, the style popular in the area around Fukuoka and northern Kyushu. But you won't find the usual tonkotsu ramen, with its thick, white, savory broth cooked down from pork bones. Instead, the soup is made entirely from chicken: Daisen jidori chicken, free-range and organic.