Small sushi lunches just don’t fill a guy up, especially not one with bulging…err, muscles, like me. But I really do need to lose some weight, eh, and managed to avoid eating anything too bad after lunch. Still, I knew there was this quaint old sweet shop… I first saw Shonosuke when I went to […]
cake
Mother Kurkku, Harajuku
The little Kurkku chain seems to be straddling all sorts of concepts, not in a bad way. There’re organic ingredients, hip atmosphere (turntables), cafe food, bar bottles, and a full restaurant, all in two places next to each other in an obscure bit of Jingumae. It was pleasant! Look at the web site and you’ll […]
- bistro
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Figaro, Aoyama
Bit of a dissapointment here – looking for a cafe to kill some time between lunch, shopping and dinner, this seemed like the obvious choice in Aoyama (since, for example, the Henri Le Roux cafe was packed to the rafters, and has nothing to do with him beyond the name anyway). For those few readers […]
- Kyoto
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Very Berry Cafe, Kyoto
A few curious things here. One is that the neighborhood of Kyoto behind the city hall has an abnormal number of modern, foreign restaurants and cafes mixed in with the old vegetable shops and paper stores. It’s quite nice, especially ‘Gokomachi street’ where we stayed. Another curious thing is the trend toward hyper-American cafes in […]
Cafe Mobo Moga, Shibuya
What the heck is a Mobo Moga? All African tribal jokes aside, this is a pleasant place to drink and dine. It was just late-afternoon snacks for us, which is not its best use. This dark stairway is also not its best side…but at least it gets you prepared for the dark, rustic woodiness that […]
- French
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Le Jardin, Yoga
Setagaya Art Museum is good for a visit. It’s a healthy walk away from Yoga, and that healthy walk, if done properly on the smaller streets and not on the 6-lane monsters that cut through the area, will be almost unconscionably pleasant. It will include cobbled streets with architectural details at every corner, water features, […]
Second House Cake Shop, Shimo Kitazawa
I know, I know, the last thing you need after a bowl of ramen and a plate of gyoza is a piece of cake. But after walking around for an hours, you get tired of standing up and looking at old clothes (which is one of the main activities in SKZ). This being Japan, there’s […]
Tant Pour Tant, Tsukishima
Nothing follows monja like cake (?), so after lunching at Bambi and strolling around a bit more, it was time to enjoy a quiet coffee and a piece of cake in my maiden aunt’s living room. Not really, of course, but this cute cake shop has a second floor that features the owner’s landscape paintings […]
Pierre Herme, Shinjuku (Isetan)
Good question, isn’t it? Could things really taste better at the Paris headquarters of the various places whose macarons I regularly consume? This is the subject of obsessive debate in some quarters, but not here. We just eat. I suppose Pierre Herme is famous for all sorts of things. Evidently chief among them is the […]
Derriere, Nishi Azabu
After a large pizza lunch, what do you need? Coffee and cake! Derriere is a cute little cafe, ideal for ladies who lunch with their kids and bankers who don’t work on Tuesday afternoons. They have a big cooler full of beautiful, traditional-style cakes (4 types of chiffon! see the web site) and serve coffee […]