Ramen. It's one of the few cuisines that the Food File rarely writes about. Why? Because just about everyone in Japan is an expert on the subject. Everyone has their own favorite noodle joints, as often as not in obscure suburban locations and with hourlong queues outside. And most are fiercely vocal about their hard-slurped expertise.
So why do we dare to tiptoe into such a minefield? Because when the Great Heat sets in, noodles are exactly what we feel like eating. Here are a few places around the city where we have sat and slurped this summer.
Kaotan Ramen is the archetypal ramen shack, a scruffy wood-clad hut so cluttered with crates and empty cans it's hard to identify the entrance. Wedged below the tip of Aoyama Cemetery, the address is Minami-Aoyama, but the time zone could be several decades ago.