Clam & Bonito Kaibushimen RAIK / Clam & Bonito 貝節麺 RAIK - Honancha

Clam & Bonito RAIK’s ramen is all about shellfish and seafood flavors, so if that is not your thing, you can stop reading right here. Clam & Bonito Kaibushimen RAIK (CLAM & BONITO 貝節麺 raik) is known as one of the top shellfish broth ramen shops in Tokyo, or probably in all of Japan for that matter.

This is also a bowl for all pescetarians out there: Without the toppings, this bowl is pescetarian friendly, since all soup ingredients are either shellfish or seafood.

*Tokusei Shio Ramen at Clam & Bonito Kaibushimen RAIK*

Clam & Bonito RAIK is the second shop of the RAIK group, which started with Bonito Soup Noodle RAIK, both just a few minutes away from Honancha station a few train stops to the West of Shinjuku. While the original ramen shop is all about bonito, also called katsuo or katsuobushi, the second shop is all about shellfish ramen.

Shellfish and seafood ramen soup at Raik — *Shellfish and seafood double soup with shio tare seasoning*

From the moment you step into the shop, the theme becomes clear, just from the aroma that lies in the air. Slowly simmered shellfish stock and kombu-fish stock is combined as a double soup to create a super aromatic, yet delicate bowl of ramen. The noodles are square cut and have specs of grain in them for some added aroma and texture. The toppings are very much on the high end side, with lots of sous vide being used for maximum juicy meats, 2 cuts of pork and 1 piece of chicken. The egg is masterfully made and has a distinct mirin heavy seasoning. But the greatest topping probably the shellfish purée in the back of the bowl (look to the right of the egg in the picture above).

Ramen noodles in shio ramen at Raik — *Pulling great high quality noodles out of the shio ramen bowl at RAIK*

My recommendation is to slurp away maybe a third or a bit more of the bowl, until a certain flavor fatigue sets in. THEN you either dab some of it onto your slurps or you mix it into the soup, getting a bit of in on every slurp that way. It really deepens and intensifies the shellfish flavor, preventing your taste buds from going numb halfway into the bowl. In general, there are so many different toppings on the tokusei bowl that every bite can be a bit different from the previous one, so this bowl of ramen never gets boring. Although Clam & Bonito RAIK offers shio ramen, shoyu ramen and tsukemen, you should definitely go for the shio ramen when you visit the shop for the first time.