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Crab, Claaaaab, and high prices in Asakusa<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Rising prices in Japan have put ramen<\/strong> restaurants in a tricky position, since part of what makes the beloved noodle dish so beloved is that, traditionally, it\u2019s been not only a tasty meal option, but an affordable one too. As inflation continues, though, a growing number of ramen restaurants are now charging more than 1,000 yen (US$6.50) for a bowl of ramen, and crossing over the four-figure threshold in price has made restaurant ramen a tougher sell to the general public.<\/p>\n So with that going on, it\u2019s a bold choice by Kani O<\/strong>, a new ramen restaurant in Tokyo\u2019s Asakusa<\/strong> neighborhood, to start their ramen pricing at 2,000 yen a bowl<\/strong>. Bold and divisive, as online reviews and chatter about Kani O, which started serving customers on May 4, have been sharply divided into love-it and hate-it camps<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Making the situation even more complex is that some (though not all) of the negative reviews our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun<\/strong> has seen seem to be from people who haven\u2019t actually eaten at the restaurant. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, some of the most glowing reviews of the place that P.K. has seen come from social media influencers who\u2019re personal acquaintances of Kani O\u2019s owner, mixed martial artist Komeo.<\/p>\n In short, the buzz about the place is a sea of chaos, and so P.K. made the decision to wade into those waters and try Kani O\u2019s ramen for himself (and just to be clear, this was before his heart attack that currently has him in the hospital<\/a>).<\/p>\n The Kani O name is written in Japanese (\u304b\u306b\u3092) on the storefront, but even if you can\u2019t read the hiragana characters you\u2019ll know you\u2019re there when you see the \u201cSPICY CRAB RAMEN\u201d underneath it and \u201cARE YOU READY?\u201d across the noren cloth hanging in the doorway. Oddly enough, Kani O calls its standard ramen \u201cThe Claaaaab,\u201d<\/strong> with an L, so maybe some of the negative reviews are from linguists.<\/p>\n But P.K. was here to evaluate their ramen, not their spelling, and so he ordered a bowl of The Claaaaab, for 2,000 yen. You can select a spiciness level from 0 to 10, and P.K. asked for his right in the middle, at spiciness level 5.<\/p>\n \u25bc And yes, that\u2019s a whole soft-shelled crab in the bowl<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Despite its eye-catching coloring, a common complaint online about Kani O\u2019s ramen is that the broth is bland<\/strong>. P.K. started his tasting by trying a spoonful, and while we wouldn\u2019t say it was flavorless, it didn\u2019t have an immediate strong impact on his taste buds either, nor did the level-5 spiciness set his mouth on fire. The primary players in its flavor profile were the umami shellfish notes, making for a surprisingly delicate sensation<\/strong>, and the gap between how the broth looks like it\u2019s going to taste versus how it actually does taste might be contributing to some of the griping about Kani O\u2019s broth being bland, more so than a true lack of flavor.<\/p>\n The noodles are neither thick nor thin, but right in the middle of the bell curve for ramen in Japan.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the soft-shelled crab, imported from China and deep-fried before going into your ramen bowl. This is a proper piece of seafood, rich in flavor and even adding some of its aroma to The Claaaaab\u2019s bouquet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n So after trying Kani Wo\u2019s ramen for himself, does P.K. agree with the haters?<\/strong> Not really. In particular, he doesn\u2019t agree wit the criticism about the broth being bland, and instead feels like it\u2019s purposely crafted to have a mild flavor to encourage customers to drink every last drop.<\/p>\n On the other hand, he can see how someone could come away unsatisfied from a meal here, especially at the price of 2,000 yen. That\u2019s a lot to ask for a bowl of ramen, and P.K. didn\u2019t feel like Kani O\u2019s version of the dish is on some sort of completely different level than ramen restaurants with sub-2,000-yen offerings, which aren\u2019t at all hard to find. He\u2019s impressed by the level of originality on display in Kani O\u2019s ramen, but since the flavor didn\u2019t necessarily blow him away, the novelty factor isn\u2019t strong enough to convince him to become a repeat customer.<\/p>\n This puts P.K. in the unusual position of thinking \u201cYeah, it\u2019s not bad, but not great either\u201d about this love-it-or-hate-it ramen restaurant. However, with nearly a dozen people already waiting to get into the restaurant when P.K. showed up 20 minutes before opening time on a Saturday, it looks like there are currently enough people who love the place, or at least think they will, for it to stick around for at least a while.<\/p>\n Restaurant information<\/strong> Photos \u00a9SoraNews24<\/em> Crab, Claaaaab, and high prices in Asakusa. Rising prices in Japan have put ramen restaurants in a tricky position, since part of what makes the beloved noodle dish so beloved…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soranews24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/kr-2.jpg?w=640\")
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\nKani O \/ \u304b\u306b\u3092
\nAddress: Tokyo-to, Taito-ku, Asakusa 2-22-8
\n\u6771\u4eac\u90fd\u53f0\u6771\u533a\u6d45\u83492-22-8
\nOpen 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
\n\u25cf Want to hear about SoraNews24\u2019s latest articles as soon as they\u2019re published? Follow us on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"