The Moomin Bakery/CafĂ© was the first one we went to so I didn’t really know what to expect other than it being extremely cute and Instagrammable. It delivered on this for the most part as the cafe was, in fact, cute and Instagrammable. We had already eaten, so we only got desserts (Matthews fault). But, since it was technically a bakery, I don’t think that main meals were their main selling point. The desserts were served in cute Moomin cups which I really wish I had bought. They were fairly good but also quite basic and padded out with a lot of cream.
I’ve played Monster Hunter once and accidentally fell asleep so this was more for Matthew, but I was impressed nonetheless. When you first walk in there’s a giant Palico which, from what I remember, is pretty cute. There were two PS4s with Monster Hunter to play and a Great Sword hung on the wall. The ordering system was pretty cool, but less so if you can’t read Japanese as that’s the only language the tablet shows. All you have to do is type in the number of the meal and it sends the order to the kitchen. Matthew ordered a matcha tea milkshake and I ordered some kind of soda with jelly in which I ended up drinking both of, and they were both okay. For food, we ordered a crab pasta; Which was really tasty and would’ve been even tastier if I knew how to get the meat off the crab. Matthew ordered what he described as a “ridiculously thicc rasher of bacon on a bed of gnocchi in a tomato sauce” which he claims is the best thing he ate. We also ordered a side of fried chicken which had a whole ass chicken foot in it.
I’ve been a fan of Sanrio since I was young so I had high expectations for their canteen. We both went for ramen because it was one of our first days so we weren’t feeling experimental and you can never go wrong with ramen. The presentation was good. Matthew had a really cute Gudetama in his ramen and it almost hurt to watch him eat it. The sweet egg used to make the Gudetama and the Pompompurin on top of the ramen I didn’t really like, but it seemed to be on everything later on in the holiday. Other than that I stand by that you can never go wrong with ramen because it was delicious!
The Pompompurin cafĂ© was quite strange. We didn’t plan to go there but we wanted to see the Shibas across the road and had some time to spare. It took about ten minutes to get in which was totally fine since we had, like, an hour and a half but when we sat down nobody came to us for a good while. We waited for about twenty to thirty minutes for anyone to even take our order which slightly worried us because we really didn’t wanna miss the Shibas but, when we were eventually served, it only took about fifteen minutes for Matthews food and.. not mine? He was hungry and wanted to eat but I wanted to take cute Insta pics so this was literally the worst thing that could happen, and I had to beg him not to eat. After about five minutes my food finally came and visually was definitely worth it, but as a meal, both were slightly disappointing. Matthew’s beef stroganoff had about two pieces of beef in it and I’m not sure if my beef was meant to be cold but I didn’t like it. The rice, on the other hand, was very nice.
The Doraemon cafĂ© was in the Fujiko F Fujio Museum in Kawasaki. We were hesitant about going in because it was extremely busy and we had to take a number which was around sixty off the number just called so we didn’t know how long we would have to wait. Fortunately, it was a museum so it’s not like we had to just sit and wait. We wandered around for half an hour then luckily enough came back to two numbers before our own. The service was great, they sat us down straight away and we ordered pretty much as soon as we sat down. The menu was small so the food came out quickly and looked so great. The staff were friendly and brought over Doraemon plushies for photos which, unfortunately, came out awful because Matthew blinked but the effort was still there. I ordered the chili and it was great, and in my opinion, it was the best character cafĂ© food we had all holiday.
The Ghibli Museum is hard to get into and you can only get in at certain times so naturally there was a queue to get into the Straw Hat Café. Thankfully, the staff know this and they had sun-shades, chairs, and menus set up outside. So after a short 10-minute wait, we could order straight away. Us being stupid and from Britain ordered drinks first and confused the staff as they tried to make us pay after we received our drinks. When we got that blip sorted out the food came out quickly. The drink I had was really nice; pretty much just a soda float but it was blue so that makes it cooler, and the curry I had was just a basic curry, but the plate I liked a lot.
The Kirby CafĂ© in Skytree town was supposed to close before we got to Japan, which I was upset about but, somehow, (because Google listens) an ad came up on Instagram saying that the time had been extended, so we immediately booked in for it. When we got there we got a bit lost and when we found it a nice American boy, who was clearly a very big Kirby fan and was there on his own, asked if we could take pictures for him. Shout-out to him, he was cute. I ordered a hotdog and Matthew ordered a burger. My verdict is that they definitely used IKEA hotdogs. I know an IKEA hotdog when I taste one and I’m not complaining because they do the best hotdogs out there. Also, those tiny star hash browns are genuinely the best hash browns I’ve ever eaten and I am devastated that there weren’t more of them.
I didn’t know One Piece before we went to One Piece Tower and I barely knew One Piece after we left so characters didn’t affect my choice of food for this one. I picked a Sanji drink which was basically a fruit salad in a cup and Matthew ordered a Nami drink for two reasons which are both clearly visible when you look at her. For food, I ordered a Sabo burger which I picked because I was intrigued by the black bun. I’m not sure who Sabo is but I googled him and I’m, like, ninety percent sure it’s just Sanji in a different outfit. I wasn’t entirely impressed by my burger because it had silkworm egg in it which, as a concept, put me off eating it at all, but it had those star hash browns from the Kirby Cafe so I was over the moon with that. However, I really enjoyed Matthew’s pizza, but he only let me have one piece (ba-dum, cha).
Technically, we went to Osaka for Universal Studios, but I choose to believe it was for our thicc king Gudetama. The Gudetama CafĂ© was quite hard to find, so I wasn’t surprised when there were only two other people in the cafĂ©. That actually made it seem better because what makes a depressed egg seem more depressing than his own cafĂ© being empty? Gudetama cartoons shorts were playing on the TV so his adorable depressed little voice rang through our ears for the half an hour we were there and Gudetama plushies were dotted around the cafĂ©. The only other people in the cafĂ© went mad taking photos with them so I attempted to do that too and bug fell off the plushie, and I was permanently scarred. On the other hand, the food was so cute that we also got dessert. The food altogether was great and good value for money.
Bonus Boys:
My two favourite things? Churros and Levi Ackerman, so a Levi churro? Universal, you win this time because that’s an offer I can’t refuse. It had orange peelings on the top to represent a mop head, (I think?) which I wasn’t really a fan of, and it was very dry. It had definitely been sitting under a lamp for a while but it’s a theme park so you can’t be too picky.
Disney is known for its good food so Disneyland in Japan we had high expectations of. We ate at Huey, Dewey and Louie’s Good Time CafĂ©. I had a pizza and Matthew had a dumpling both of which lived up to Disney’s reputation. The pizza was quite small but, for the price you pay, it’s definitely worth it.
Overall, I give them a 3/5. I think character cafĂ©s are great as long as it’s a place where you’re interested in the specific characters. If not it just feels like you’re paying too much for average food. The menus are mostly small and full of easy-to-make meals as they can get quite busy, so don’t go there looking for an exquisite meal.
The Wandering NPCs 