The creamy chicken-broth ramen style is called tori paitan. In Japanese, tori means chicken, while paitan refers to a cloudy white broth with a thick, creamy texture. The soup is made by boiling chicken bones—often with skin, meat, or other collagen-rich parts—vigorously enough to emulsify fats and proteins into the liquid.
Paitan is a broad ramen-broth category, not a flavoring such as miso, shoyu, or shio. Its best-known counterpart is tonkotsu, which is also a paitan broth but uses pork bones instead of chicken. Tori paitan therefore offers the same opaque, rich appearance while producing a different flavor profile, often described as savory, rounded, and less pork-forward.
The contrasting category is chintan, a clear broth made by simmering ingredients gently and skimming impurities. Tori paitan should not be confused with tori shio or tori shoyu: those names describe chicken ramen seasoned primarily with salt or soy sauce, whereas “paitan” identifies the broth’s emulsified, creamy style.