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 

Trip down memory lane

So my first week back in Japan has ended, and I'm starting to feel at home again. I have school five days a week so on the weekend I try to do things I can't do on the weekdays, and this weekend I met up with a friend for dinner and then some fun at the 8bit café!

I wrote an entry about it last time I was in Tokyo, which you can read here.
Not much had changed, other than the place was packed this time! I guess more and more has heard about this place now.
What's so funny about this place is that they have games lying around, some you can try and they also have original cocktails. Last time I tried the awesome Dr Mario which is served with a test tube containing two "pills", if you want to read more please click on the link above!
Since their list of original cocktails are very long I want to try as many different ones as possible, so this evening I went for:

 A boy of Pink Dark, or as it was called in Japanese,　ピンクダーク少年. It was supposed to be flavoured with blueberry but I just thought it was bitter, not to be recommended.

 Princess Peach Temptation, ピーチ姫の誘惑. This one tasted so sweet and the peach flavour was really strong, I loved it! (You can always count on Mario :3)

As I mentioned in my previous post, the bar charges you 500yen for staying there and you have to order something every hour. If you want to visit you can easily just google 8bit café and google maps will show you the way! Highly recommended for any gamer to visit.

This time around they had this huge Game Boy standing next to our table, still don't know if you could acctually play it...

Final Fantasy Piano Opera

I've been terrible with updating here, even when I've been to events related to Japan! ごめんね( ﾉД`)

This autumn the composer of Final Fantasy, Nobuo Uematsu, toured together with pianist Hiroyuki Nakayama and fortunatley they made a stop in Stockholm!

This was my first time to see Nobuo acctually, so it felt really special for me since I've admired his work for over 10 years! Just as the title implies the music was just played on piano, so no flashy effect etc. we might be used to in te original scores but I have to say the concert was beyond my expectations! I have a bit of a hard time just listening to piano or only guitar music. I think it's amazing to be able to enjoy a full set of instruments, it creates a completly different dynamic, but they had done an amazing job with re-working the songs, making them into longer scores mixing different songs. While playing the music we, the audience, got to watch various scenes from the games which I think added a good feeling to the experience.

The music which was performed was from Final Fantasy I to IX, I felt a bit sad they didn't include X which is my favorite game but しょうがない...

The most interesting part about this concert was the fact that inbetween the medleys Nobuo came up on stage and talked a bit about the songs and other various stuff. They also asked for special memories connected to Final Fantasy music from fans, and Nobuo picked some of those out and talked about them on stage. The weirdest moment was probably when a guy went down on his knee and proposed to his girlfriend! Afterwards they got to hear Melodies of Life from Final Fantasy IX.

Another fun part was when Hiroyuki got the question how it felt to work with Nobuo and he replied "like meeting God". He told us he'd been a fan of the Final Fantasy games and the music since he was a teenager, and even then he began playing the songs by himself on his piano.

If you bought a more expensive ticket you'd get to stay for a meet and greet with questions to Nobuo. I didn't, I had a Madonna concert 2 nighs afetrwards so I needed to save money. Hopefully I can attend something similaranother time!

Overall it was a very nice evening, I just can't get tired of anything related to Final Fantasy!

I found this poster at my uni!

8bit Café

I visited Tokyo for the first time almost 4 years ago, and before that trip I collected as much information as possible as I thought I probably wouldn't go back for perhaps another 5 years or so (hehe, I went back the following year). One of the things I added to my lost of doing was to visit the 8bit café I've read about in a gaming magazine. I never went though, nor did I go the following year. Now there's only 2 weeks left for me in Japan so I try my hardest to fill my days with fun stuff. and last night me and a friend finally visited the 8bit café in Shinjuku!

I'm terrible at finding stuff and this place had the tiniest sign outside an entrance with a huge sign for an erotic clothing store. The café opens at 7pm and closes at 5, so we tried to get there as soon as they opened and I'm glad we did because it filled up kind of quickly.

As soon as we reached the right floor the door opened and a girl from the staff welcomed us (she acctually stood there and held the door eventhough I stood in the middle of the stairs trying to take a photo of their awesome sign). As soon as we got in they told us to have a seat and another girl from the staff came with menu's and explained the "rules", which was that you have to pay the entrance fee of 600yen, order a drink every 1½ hour to stay and that photography was allowed.

This really was the cutest place ever! It felt like sitting in someones living room, so many games and a very nice atmosphere. One of the "tables" in the back was acctually an old arcade game, so you could play as you were sitting down!

They offered a small amount of desserts and snacks, but what's most appealing are their special cocktails! They cost about 700yen each and all are refferences to games!
I tried a Dr. Mario first, vodka with Dr Pepper and Coke, and on the side you get a testtube with 2 pills inside which I was told to put in the drink.

Then there was time for some gaming! They had Gameboys and stuff lying around and tons of games and guides you could read, but I went for the Super Mario! It was so much fun, I haven't played Super Mario (the old ones) for about 12 years so it felt very nostalgic.

After 3½h of gaming, drinking and looking through their stuff it was time to go.
The staff was very nice and this is a must for every gamer in Tokyo! But highly recomended to go as early as possible because after 1h it was more or less full.
Don't forget to leave a drawing or a note in one of their notepads!
Webpage: http://8bitcafe.net/index.html

My menu for the evening~

Dr.Mario (vodka, Dr. Pepper and Coke)

Donkey Kong, (can't remember the ingredients but it tasted like banana)

And a cake cheese, yes you read it right, not a normal cheese cake. It acctually tasted a lot cheesier, not as sweet.