Patisserie Potager

Picture from Bento.com

So I've been eying this place for ages. I don't know that it actually qualifies as a cafe, but it's close enough for me. I found it on Bento.com's site on the cafe page, so it must count, right? Anyway, it's more of a sweets shop, but anyway...

As I said, I've been wanting to go here for a while, but being as how it's in Nakameguro, I just couldn't make myself go all the way out there. But, then I found someone who lives in the area, so it suddenly became "no big deal". So my friend who resides in Nakameguro and I hit up Patisserie Potager. Yes!

Now, you may be wondering what exactly is so great about this place. It's just a sweets shop, right? Well, no, not exactly. The sweets here all contain some sort of vegetable. There's cakes with carrots, tomatoes, and spinach in them, among other things. My friend chose pumpkin tiramisu, and I went with avocado cheesecake. What? We also had some organic coffee to go along with it.

So, how was everything? The size of the cakes was a bit small, but being as how I was eating cheesecake, I wasn't complaining. My friend and I, of course, tried a bit of the other person's sweet. The pumpkin tiramisu was good, but I preferred my own. (I love tiramisu, but I love cheesecake more.) The coffee wasn't anything special, but it was rather cheap.

As for the price, I ended up being treated to everything, so I ended up not catching the price or getting a receipt. I will say that I'm pretty sure that everything included (2 desserts and 2 coffees) was no more than about 1500. But I could be wrong, of course.

The cafe itself was nice. They don't have any seats inside, but there's a cute seating area outside. And with the nice weather and the breeze, it was a comfortable place to spend a few hours. I would go here again to try the other sweets if I was in the area. But it seems like the area has lots of other interesting places to check out, so I'll do that first.

Order: Pumpkin Tiramisu, Avocado Cheesecake, Two Hot Coffees
Review: A cute and interesting place to visit on a nice day.

Website: http://www.potager.co.jp/
Access: Nakameguro Station (A few minutes walk)
Address: 2-44-9 Kamimeguro, Meguro, Tokyo, Japan

Rain on the Roof Cafe

Today was a fun day - any day that involves both karaoke and a new cafe is a great day. Throw good company and a cat into the mix - magical! Anyway, a language exchange partner of mine and I hung out in the Sangenjaya area. It was my first time out there so he was responsible for finding a good cafe. He chose Rain On the Roof Cafe.

Rain On The Roof Cafe is on the second floor of an older building. It was one of those renovated style cafes. The roof looked like an old Japanese house and the overall atmosphere was pretty homey. But in a masculine kind of way. The dimly lit room was scattered with not only  wooden chairs and tables but  also some oversized dark brown leather chairs and sofas. Naturally we went with the comfy looking leather chairs. We were planning on being there for a while and why not, right?

When we went in, we were greeted by the smell of Curry Rice. It smelled pretty delicious so I'm gonna guess their food is alright here. We both just went with coffees - iced coffee for him and a cappuccino for me. It was a really hot day, but I'm finding that iced coffee isn't really my cup of tea. So cappuccino it was. The waitress took our order but then came back to make sure I knew that cappuccinos were hot. "Um...of course I know that" is what I was thinking. "That's fine" is what I told her.

So, I don't know about the iced coffee but I was quite pleased with the cappuccino. The presentation was nice. The layer of cinnamon on top smelled amazing! And it tasted quite nice too. I had absolutely no complaints about it. And since it was hot, I was also drinking water. I will definitely give props to the staff for being so attentive and keeping my glass full.

So, what with the comfortable atmosphere, cold water, delicious coffee, and good company, I was quite pleased. I believe this place also serves as a small live house, and I would actually be quite interested in coming back and seeing a show here at some point. As long as I can sit in one of the arm chairs and drink another cappuccino, that is.

Order: Cappuccino (¥600)
Review: Nice cafe in a renovated space.

Website: http://renovationplanning.co.jp/roof/index.html
Access: Sangenjaya Station (about 5 or so minutes)

Address: 2-14-22 2F, Sangenjaya, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo 154-0024

空想カフェ (Kuusou Cafe)

My friend and I both had the afternoon off today so we decided to hit up a cafe together. We planned on going to Toique, because it sounded like a rather interesting place. We walked all the way out there only to find that it was closed until about two hours later. Drats! We were slightly disappointed but we weren't about to give up so easily. So we sat down with our cafe magazines to find a new destination.

We decided to go with 空想カフェ. 空想 translates to daydream or fantasy. Sounds like an interesting place, right? So we walked from Okachimachi to Iriya to find the place. And then in we went. It was indeed a cute place. Very quiet. My friend and I were the only customers and there was just one man behind the counter doing something on his MacBook. We chose to sit down at the interesting shaped table in the middle of the room. There was no one else to worry about, after all.

We then placed our order. We were able to choose coffee or tea. It was a hot day so iced coffee was also okay. "Alright, 2 iced coffees please". And as the gentlemen went to the back, my friend and I shared a dubious look. My friend was slightly bewildered at the lack of cake or bread. If we had done proper research before, we would have known, but because we hadn't, we were a bit surprised. There were books all over the place and a toy room that we probably could have looked at, but didn't.

Instead we had a nice pleasant chat about the type of cafe we would run, given the choice and opportunity. And waited for our coffees to arrive. And arrive they eventually did. With the most interesting stirrers we'd seen in a while. And by interesting, I mean slightly racist looking. After a good chuckle, we used our odd stirrers to add in some milk and sugar syrup to the rather strong coffee. Now, the coffee was pretty good, but something was weird with the milk so it kind of balled together. That was a bit gross.

After spending a good while chatting about random things, we went to pay. We had both decided this wasn't the best cafe we'd been to. My friend disliked it more than I did until...we got a free little keychain toy thing. The gentleman ended up being quite friendly and chatty at the end so he earned lots of points with us then.

I can't go so far as to recommend this place, but I wouldn't recommend against it either. It was nice enough and if I lived in the area I would probably go there. But since I don't and I'm never really in that area, I won't be visiting again. But I must say, I like the concept of the cafe. It's a nice quite space with some interesting things to look at. And I kind of like the idea of just serving a couple things. Keeps things simple for the owner, right? Maybe I'll add that feature to my dream cafe.

Order: Iced Coffee (¥500)
Review: Interesting concept and nice space. But...

Website: http://asakusanocafe.com/
Access: Iriya station (probably about 5-10 minutes.)
Address: 2-30-1 Senzoku, Taito Ward, Tokyo