The basement of my favoritely-named ‘Nihon Building’ (I love the banality) contains all sort of sad little places. Here’s another one, to go with a sad rainy day. Rainy days, Mondays and anorexia always get me down. It’s a good thing today is Tuesday even though it’s the first day of the week.
Things start off strong at Cafe Heimat – it’s dark, and there’s a structural pillar practically blocking the entrance. A significant part of the seating is in a very thin corridor along the front window. Then again, it HAS a front window, and uses it to some advantage with lacy curtains and alternate-color wicker chairs like you’d find in Paris. Tre sweat, doncha think? You betcha! The chairs are also very close together, so if you go with a friend they’ll certainly be sitting close to you.
It’s all yoshoku; the twist comes at the end. They unfortunately opt to put fresh samples outside; believe it or not, this is probably LESS appetizing than plastic samples. But I had it in mind to have curry today, and when I saw their omrice I was hooked. It turned out to be a normal omrice – demiglace sauce, not curry, but it was too late at that point, and no problem anyway.
The set came with a throwaway salad, but at that point we’d only just begun. The omrice was big, cooked through instead of slimy, and the demiglace and mushrooms tasted pretty well canned instead of fresh, but nothing overtly wrong with ’em. If anything out of all this was going to make you sing, sing a song, it would be the drinks that come with the sets, after the main. I had Royal Milk Tea in a nice china cup with a spot of whipped cream on top. It’s a sign you’ve been in Japan for a while when you start liking tea in China cups.
If you were of a mind to linger, like the table of ladies next to me who came in just for coffees and cake, you could be on top of the world here in the semi-dark, with the lace curtains, faux-European paintings and old-fashioned food and china making you think it was yesterday once more.
Wow, that was a weird concept-review. It’s been a while.
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