Sanrio Character Gudetama Restaurant

I'm trying to catch up on entries I began writing when I acctually visited all these places, very unfortunate that I was lazy and did not write them then -.-' Because of the corona crisis I am stuck at home with less to do and therefore I decided I should start writing again. There are so many things I never wrote about which I have experienced in Japan! So while I wait to return I will revisit all of the places in writing :)

If reading my earlier entries from Osaka it's pretty clear I did not like it that much. I don't want to blame the city itself but more my circumstances. I never did get any friends at the uni and I was living far away from the actual city. But most I think I just missed my life in Tokyo where I have friends and could even spend wonderful evenings all alone. I was determined though to not have my exchange semester spent alone in my dorm up the Mountains and I did try to make the best out of it. One of the things on my must-visit-list was the Gudetama restaurant in Umeda!

All the Sanrio character cafés are all very similar and reading the reviews online it seems to be a hit or miss. I personally enjoy them, it's a unique experience for us living in dull countries with "normal" cafés :P However, the menu can be good and sometimes not so much. For example the Cinnamoroll café in Shinjuku had a disapointing menu in my opinion, whereas the pompompurin café in Harajuku had an awesome pudding!

The Gudetama café ended up somewhere in the middle for me, entertaining as always (it also feels better to sit alone in these kinds of cafés hehe) but the menu was just ok.

I ordered the curry and a coke float. As I do not eat pork I undressed Gudetama. (Normally I try to avoid ordering pork as I dislike throwing away food, but if I remember correctly they only had pork in the main dishes and this was my dinner)

On screens around the restaurant Gudetama episodes were playing on repeat and all around were Gudetama plushies so you won't feel alone :) By the cashier different smaller goods are sold, from pens to lipbalm. I think this cost me around 2000-2500 yen, worth the price because of the unique experience.

I'm still wondering why there's no permenant Little Twin Stars café... (unless one opened in the past year)

Capcom bar

I love videogames, especially old ones, so I'm always looking for new cool shops or bars with video game themes while in Tokyo. I heard there was a capcom restaurant in Shinjuku, and shortly after I was on my way!
They recomend you to reserve a table on their webpage, which I did. Their webpage is very convenient for foreigners as they have an English version showing the menu and other information. I arrived and the staff immediately asked if I had made a reservation and showed me to a table. They had seats by the bar, and then around 5 tables, so it's a small restaurant. The staff was super nice, and they were truly into the game theme... After cleaning our table after the maincourse she said "stage clear" before leaving, haha.

The restaurant was kind of small, but it had a lot of fun things to look at! Everywhere was small action figueres from different Capcom games, and even in the sofa where I sat a toy duck from some game was put. Close to one table was a tv and a console for guests to enjoy.


So what about the food?

The games I've played from capcom which was featured at this restaurant is Street fighter and Mega man, also known as Rokkuman in Japan. So I decided to stick to those when ordering.

My cocktail was a vodka based drink with a slice of dragon fruit on the side. It looked very nice and it was very nice, so I highly recomend it to those who enjoy fruity cocktails!
For maindish I had the omuraisu, á la Street fighter. Sorry, but I can't really understand how this was related to Street fighter, but it was good. The rice was slightly spicy and mixed with chicken.
What caught my eye in the menu however was the desserts. My friend had the Biohazard brain cake! I have to say, it looked so gross I couldn't have it, and the amazing thing was that when it was served, our waitress had my friend stabb it with a special knife. I can't say how it tasted, but according to my friend it was rather good.

I chose to have chocolate guns, a dessert based on Devil May Cry. I got way too excited about having guns for dessert, and truth me told, it was a lot of chocolate. To the point where I felt like I wanted to throw up. I should make it clear I almost passed out afterwards, not because of the guns, but because of dehydration, so it might not just have been me being full which caused me to feel bad, but maybe a bit.

 Street Fighter omelette rice, with ketchup on the side.

Devil May Cry dessert.

Anyway, it was rather a big portion and truthfully not that good. Besides the guns in white and black chocolate was a soft cake, reminding me of a bad danish, topped with chocolate pudding, surrounded with a berry sauce. It was worth it for the guns, but for the taste, not so much...

I'm happy that I went, and I can see myself go again,  BUT perhaps only to have something small to eat and for the cocktails. The menu felt rather weak compared to many of the other theme restaurants I've been to, but for the experience it was worth it.

Perhaps it might just be me, truthfully I haven't been playing many of the Capcom games, so I'm sure fans of their games will enjoy this much more. Although that doesn't improve the menu.

Worth noticing is that this restaurant is a collaboration with Pasela, the karaoke place I reviewed in a previous entry. There's one place left of their collaborations that I will review later, which was a  lot better than the Capcom restaurant, however that place was more expensive. So please look forward to it, and do pay a visit to the Capcom restaurant if you're in Tokyo!

Visit their webpage: http://www.paselaresorts.com/collaboration/capcombar/english/index.html 

Vampire Café

Previously I wrote about my visit to the Alice in wonderland restaurant in Shibuya (I also visited the ones in Ginza and  Ikebukuro later, I highly recommend the one in Ikebukuro, very beautiful!).
Anyway, the same chain which has the Alice in Wonderland restaurants also have a Vampire restaurant in Ginza. I saw a flyer for it when I attended the above so I figuered I had to go!

I was meeting up with a friend and we didn't have any specific plans so I mentioned I wanted to go there and off we went!
She had been there before so she even knew one of the guys in the staff. In the entrance was a moving skeleton and drapes covering the entrance. A waiter from the staff showed us to our table and we were handed their menu, which was shaped as a coffin! Also, when our waiter came I felt like I had seen him before, and the more I tried to sneak a peak at him while he explained the menu I felt more and more certain I did remember him and from what... I'm not gonna say who it is I think, or believe it was, but I can say that people who are into small VK bands should pay a visit...

It's very dark in this restaurant, so unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures because my camera is kind of bad. (The images which looks creepy light, it's just my flash XD)

Just like at the Alice restaurants they gave us an appetizer, some sort of japanese potatosalad with a cracker shaped as a lizard. Now to the interesting part, their menu...
I always get so excited at places like these because the menus are amazing! They had a special, time limited menu (I guess they update that every month or so), in which I found this amazing cocktail.

 I don't really remember what was included because it's been such a long time since I went (I need to update more frequently...) BUT, it was topped with rosepetals and to get the red color, an injection was put on the side, so you got to squeeze it in yourself. I do remember it was very tasty and fun though, so it was worth the 700yen it cost.

For my maincourse I had black pasta! Again, my camera suck, but on top of the pasta was a cracker shaped as a skull, and in some kind of powder (might it have been powdered cheese?) "DEATH" was written and a scythe was drawn. Another waiter came with the food, in a long, black hooded cape (I couldn't see his face, but I bet it was another bandman, huhuhu), and he poored the black ink on my food as he served. The pasta was just regular pasta with creamy sauce and octopus rings (I'm not sure what it's called acctually, but hopefully you get what I mean). It was tasty, not the most amazing food, but like always, at theme restaurants I don't expect Michelin class food.

Since the cocktails were so awesome and not that expensive I decided to ahve another one of the timelimited ones for my dessert and got the above. The flavour was of berries and it was topped with a tiny rose and an edible eyeball (made of jelly). It was also glowing adding a fun touch to it. Both me and my friend are Malice Mizer fans, and since I love Közi we thought I should take a picture with the eyeball in my mouth XD (Easier said that done, I almost unintentionally bit it off since it was all soft, hohoho).

So, the desserts, my friend had the above chocolate cake. Amazingly enough after served, they put it on fire! I regret not having this, because it looked great!

Being kind of full, I decided to have the smaller tiramisu. It seems Japan loves tiramisu, but having had European, and above all Italian tiramisu, it can't be compared. (Until this day I still haven't had a satisfying tiramisu in Japan...).

 The atmosphere was great, just look at the amazing pictures above from the restroom! On the side of the sink, was a head, and the walls was covered in blood. When google:ing for this restaurant I found some reviews on various rating websites, and their rating was kind of low. This is unfortunate I think. I also think that many of the bad reviews was more about language barrier than the acctual restaurant. I want to straighten something out. First of all, I want to mention that I am not a globetrotter, I've traveled a lot but within Europe, outside of Europe I've only been to 3 different countries (severeal times though), so I'm for most part used to being able to use English. However, many places outside of Europe, or the US, don't have the same level of English as you might be used to. That being said, you can't expect everyone to be able to speak English everywhere you go. This restaurant, and many others in Tokyo, aren't necessarily made for tourists, alot of japanese people come here and therefor they might not have staff which understand that much English. So instead of giving them bad reveiws I think people should try and think about the language and cultural barrier.

That being said, I highly recommend this place, like always, it's worth it's price just being there. About the prices, the original cocktails cost around 700-1000yen, maincourses 1000-2000yen and desserts 700-1500yen (of course there are even cheaper and more expensive but this is a rough estimation). The vampire restaurant is located in Ginza, please have a look at their website below for directions. Also, they recomend you to reserve a table, however it is not possible for people who do not have a japanese phonenumber. Although, I would say these places usually don't get packed, so the chance is high to get in, especially if you get there early.

http://www.diamond-dining.jp/shop_info/vampire/top_flash.html

Pompompurin Café

Yet another cutesy café in Tokyo! This one is located in Harajuku, and yet I had no idea! My friend told me about it and I really like Pompompurin so I had to go!
The café is located in the very busy Takeshita dori (the narrow street full of shops, located to the left of the JR station after you cross the street), more accurate, it's located in the "Cute Cube Harajuku" which is located at Takeshita dori. It's on the third floor and Cute Cube Harajuku has an elevator.

Just like any other theme cafés and bars EVERYTHING was pompompurin. The café itself isn't very big, on the left of the entrance is the reception desk, and on the right they had a small shopping area with different pompompurin goods.

The menu was, of course, very cute. As for me, I had a caramel drink (sort of like a frappuccino), topped with a Pompompurin cookie while my friend had the same but macha flavoured.

For main dish, I had pasta. The food itself was ok, bothing special, but look at it! It's so cute I don't even care I paid around 1000yen for ok-pasta!

Pompompurin's face was like a very thin omelette, the ears was pieces of bread wth cheese. On the side it was served with a cup of soup and salad.

The portion didn't look that big, but I felt pretty full afterwards. Having had an okey lunch, and just looking at the cute desserts my friend successfully convinced me to get one. As a big fan of pudding I had to try that, and it was a hit!

It wasn't just delicious, but the way it was served was so adorable I felt like I almost couldn't eat it. The cup is topped witha  biscuit shaped as Pompompurin's hat and the caramel was served on the side in a tiny pot.
They did have different kinds of food, but from the look of it I feel like the desserts are a better choice. So it's totally worth just coming for a drink and dessert! I don't remember the exact prices, but a drink was around 700yen, the main dishes between 1000-1500yen, and desserts from 500-1200yen.

(I miss Little Twin Stars! Aren't there any café in their honour T_T)

Alice in Wonderland restaurant

There's a lot of theme restaurants and bars in Tokyo and this time I finally tried one of the Alice in wonderland restaurants!
I've seen pictures and read about it, but I had not yet got myself there until now. There are seven of them in Japan, including the ones in Nagoya and Osaka. In Tokyo however they are located in Shibuya, Ginza, Ikebukuro and then two in Shinjuku. Everone of them looks different and has a individual name, I went to the one in Shibuya called Alice in a dancing land.

 The menu was inside a bick clock, and it acctually worked!

Of course these restaurants go all in the theme, the staff is dressed as characters (we were led in by the Mad hatter) or just in costumes to match the story. Also, our appetizer came with a tiny card, saying "eat me", and when the waitress arrived with it she told us that we should be careful because it might make us bigger (like in the story!).
About the food, you can get a whole menu, which lasts for tw or three hours, or you can just order seperate dishes or smaller menus, which I did. Me and my friend did one of the smaller menus, including an appetizer, main dish and dessert. They had various drinks and also original cocktails, so I decided to try the Cheshire cat drink. My menu was as below!

It's not that visible in the picture, but the drink acctually glowed, no idea how that worked...

 Appetizer, buttery bicuits with soup.

 Avocado and salmon sallad, green sallad and chocolate mousse with strawberry sauce.

Pasta with shrimps and vegetables.

When we arrived, we also got bunny ears to put on, white or black. I was acctually suprised that the food was as good as it was. I didn't have any high expectations at all, concidering I assumed you paid for the experience more than the food. In the background they played Disney music, made me feel very nostalgic. Since all of the restaurants have different interior and style it's an experience just sitting there and enjoying it. For example, at this restaurant they have a merry go round, in which the tables are located.

After we paid our bill and was about to leave, our waitress arrived with a bag of tea, saying we should drink this to get to our normal size again. Some might think this kind of roleplay is silly, but I absolutely love it! That's one of the things which is so amazing about Tokyo, you can find anything here. The staff was very kind, when we were leaving the Mad hatter saw that we were taking picture in front of one of the cards, so he helped us getting a picture together!

I don't acctually remember the total I paid but I believe it was somewhere around 3500-4000 yen, which it was totally worth! They have a table fee of 500yen each, be aware. Reservations can be made through their webpage, but you have to have a Japanese cellphone. However it wasn't crowded at all when I went (around 18.30 on a weekday).

Check them out!
http://alice-restaurant.com/