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

Visual kei bar Diabolo

I hunted down yet another theme bar! This time I felt like, if there's BL, video games, Alice in Wonderland and what not, there has to be something visual kei themed in it's homecountry. Of course there was!

I googled and stumbled across their webpage and then I convinced my friend to go with me, hohoho.
It's called Diablo and is located in Shinjuku, in the hostclub area no less, hehe. It wasn't hard to find, so if you check google maps there shouldn't be any problem!
So, what to expect?
First off, it's very small. The evening we were going they also had an takoyaki event so on their webpage they encouraged people to make a reservation. I don't remember exactly how many seats they had but I would guess between 12-20. They also have a schedule so you can see whom of the staff will be working the evening you want to go. I personally didn't care, but it might be nice to go when the staff likes the same bands as you, because we were stuck in L'arc en ciel hell. I normally don't have anything against L'arc en ciel, their old stuff is pretty nice, but not for 2 hours, and almost only new songs.

The system is basically, you pay 1500yen for 1 hour and during that hour you can drink as much as you like! That sounds all good, but they were so slow making the cocktails! I'm not kidding, my friend ordered a milk based one, and I couldn't help but to wonder if they had a cow in the kitchen. It wasn't busy or anything, besides us, there was two other women there, and the staff was two guys. To be honest I assume they're slow so that you won't order like 5 drinks during that hour, because let's face it, they wouldn't get that much money out of that.
This isn't really a hostbar, but just a bit similar, probably like the BL café I've been to, so the staff will come up and talk to you. Since I was with a friend they didn't as much though. One of them introduced himself, but besides that we didn't talk (except for when he asked how I wanted my eggs XD). Maybe if you go alone they'll be more active.

Besides drinks they had a food menu! That was one of the reasons I wanted to go acctually. The food is named after different songs by VK bands and they ahd this omuraisu (omelette with rice dish which is very popular in Japan) called Ma Chérie ~Itoshi kimi e! Yeah, as a big Malice Mizer fan I had to eat that. It was worth it. I got a bit tipsy and I couldn't stop laughing at it, because they even made a star on it, maybe we could've summoned Mana or something with the omuraisu!

We ended up staying for 2 hours, and during that time I had 3 cocktails and the omuraisu. They were very slow with making the drinks as well as the food. I normally take a bit of time ordering, especially since they had so many drinks! But if I would've known I would have to wait for 15 minutes to get my drink I would've placed an order immedietly.

It was a fun experience but not sure it's worth the money in the end since it's not really all you can drink if you only can order 2 or 3 drinks in 1 hour...
Before leaving one of the staff gave us a takoyaki each, he had an uneven number, very sweet.

Please visit their webpage for more information: http://diablo.bz/