An afternoon of walking Shimokita. Believe it or not, this was outside a music store. It sounds positively filthy, doesn’t it? In a way that’s dirty and yet mysterious, like some kink you’ve never heard of.
Indeed. This is not where we ate dinner, but that’s not the subject of this post.
The subject is really the North Side Cafe,which offers your standard mix of Southeast Asian-Italian-Mexican food and large desserts in a busy, bright atmosphere, and thus is apparently popular with its target audience. Incidentally, ‘people over 30 who take random neighborhood walks without shopping much’ is probably not it.
Here’s a funny blog disused about Shimokita that I found while looking for the home page of North Side. What I like the most about this specific post is that the reviewer wandered into a gay bar for lunch and complained that the staff weren’t friendly and the service was bad. Of course it’s possible, this being Japan, that a place would brand itself with the rainbow flag and not be gay, but…naaaaaah, couldn’t be.
There were a few chairs outside, not so much for eating as for waiting, maybe. This old guy was wearing a jacket saying he was part of a town cleanup crew. He ambled by, looked at the chairs, looked around, and plopped down in one. Hey, they were going to waste. No one bugged him. Shimokita is pretty mellow like that, and it’s even harder to imagine the young staffers at North Side going outside to say “Hey Grandpa, shove off.”
Well, target audience or not, this was a fine place for coffee and cakes. The baked cheesecake on the left was the better of the two; the Oreo (R) one had less flavor, more sugar, and the Oreo (R) was soggy from refrigeration.One should perhaps go the giant-parfait route, or their famous Chili-Lime Tortilla Pasta Sundae.