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