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/

Food from afar

Okey, not so far away, but for the first time I got the chance to eat food from Okinawa!

How sad it might sound but I've only been to Tokyo in Japan, I'd love to see other cities but I love Tokyo so much I just can't see myself going to Japan without going to Tokyo. Someday though, I will cross the Tokyo border... O_o

Anyway, I met a friend from my exchange time here in Japan and he knows a lot about a lot! So this time he took me to an Okinawan restaurant in Kouenji (高円寺) to introduce me to their cuisine. I love going to these kind of niched, tiny places because I'd never go there myself.
So, what was on the menu?

 Okey, so to be honest I don't like having opinions about things without experience it but this time I sort of did get a biased opinion. I tried it and it tasted nice, but then I was told what it was and felt a bit sick to be honest. What I had just ate was pigs ears. Since about 7 years back I haven't ate pig, accidentally it has happened twice, and now. The texture was a bit like the hard parts of chicken, a bit on the crunchy side...

 Sashimi! I love sashimi, so this was a big hit, and I love how it was served, as a tiny piece of art. Delicious.

 By the first look of this, I thought it was fish eggs or something, but it's not! In English it's called sea grapes, and in Japanese umibudou (海ブドウ). It's a sort of seaweed grown in south asia, and just as it's name it's tiny grapes attached. They didn't taste that much on it's own, but where kind of fun to eat and I thought they looked very decorative.

 I forgot to take a picture, then remembered when we were almost finished. This was a dessert which tasted sort of like donuts, it was fried and I really liked it!

 The name of the restaurant is 抱瓶 (dachibin) if anyone wants to visit! The atmosphere was kind of cozy and there was so much stuff on the walls I could've walked around looking at things forever. The food however may not be for those who's looking for food similar to western, but please try it out!

Artnia

 
In 2011 on my first visit to Tokyo I got lost in Shinjuku one day, and while cursing over my bad sense of direction I found a Square Enix store! It had a kind of weird location, by the highway between Shinjuku and Harajuku, but I made many visits and spent a lot of money in that store... (among many random stuff, I bought a Sephiroth perfume).

Not only was this store really cool because it had a lot of Final Fantasy items, but it had an innersection which was kind of dark and had a lot of reflective glass. In this section they sold more expensive items, like perfumes and jewelry, and most importantly, they had a realsize Sephiroth lying under glass in the floor! They also had Gackt's outfit from the Redemption PV standing in that section.

When I went back to Japan in 2012 I went back to the Square Enix store of course, this time during the evening and I was just planning what I should buy and then get back another day. When I got back another day the store was closed. Close, closed. I was so angry that I didn't buy what I wanted that evening!

A couple of months ago a friend of mine told me there was a Final Fantasy café in Shinjuku somewhere and that we should go there. After a little google:ing I realised it was the Square Enix store which just changed location, and last saturday we went there to check it out!

I was very excited for this restaurant/bar they opened since they had some Final Fantasy themed stuff on that menu.
The store is located a bit away from the Shinjuku station, but I don't mind walking. Just walk down to the area with Forever21 and MaruiOne etc. The building looks very special, almost like a tiny spacecraft, white and somewhat eggshaped. They had cute decorations outside with Chocobos and Cactuars!

Just like the old store, it had two sections, the first with the café area and regular shopping, then they had a similar "dark" room with jewelry. Unfortunatley Sephiroth was nowhere to be found, instead they had a very impressive rainfall and materia in the middle of the room!

As for the restaurant, since it's so small you have to write your name on a list and wait for a table (unless you're lucky and there's acctually a table available). They have food, like meat and pasta, but the themed food is sweets! There's parfait with a tiny chocolate sword or Yuffie's shuriken! Cocktails called potion or named after aeons, like the awesome looking, blue "Shiva".
I decided to try a cappucino and pancakes! When ordering they acctually ask if you want Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest themed food, so here's what my order looked like!

One of my friends acctually got a tiny chocobo on her pancakes aswell! I wont lie and say it was the best coffee and pancakes I've ever had, but it was fine and most importantly, I went there because I love Final Fantasy and just seeing a chocobo in my coffee made it worth the price!

Of course I made some shopping, this is what I got with me;

Cactuar glas and a clearfile

I really liked the old store, especially because that Sephiroth statue was one of the most awesomest things I've ever seen, but on the other hand I think it was a great idea to have a café/restaurant, I love how there's so many themed cafés in Tokyo! It's totally worth to visit, and to stand in line for almost 1 hour to get a table!

Link: http://www.jp.square-enix.com/artnia/en/

Next up will be livereports from BUCK-TICK's FISHTanker's ONLY live tomorrow and their Tour2014 metaform nights final gig on sunday! (yes...I'm going 2 days in a row...)