#collabcafe

Dec 6th 2024 - January 12th 2025

I wanna start off by prefacing that this curry shop does not have super obvious signage, but it IS located at a pretty major intersection next to Akihabara station. So long as you approach it from the station you should be absolutely fine. It's about a 10 minute walk from Kanda Myojin, a shrine I first found through Love Live though many anime have a presence there, so I ended up getting a little turned around on my walk.

Tickets are purchasable through a lottery system on Live Pocket, which I'd already made an account for to attend another cafe. It's not region-locked, so as long as you have some translation aids purchasing admission and lottery tickets for admission is relatively painless.

In the case of this cafe, my lottery ticket fee counted towards one drink, so there was no additional booking fee aside from Live Pocket's processing fees.

The cafe is very small, with roughly enough room for 10 customers to sit down at a time I'd estimate. I didn't want to take photos of other customers, but there were about 6 single seated tables and 2 tables with 2 seats.

Ordering is done at the front counter where you also pay up front. I was given a buzzer so I could pick up my food from the kitchen window when it was plated. I saw someone else go back to the front to order more at some point, so I ended up doing that as well. It's nice that the order system isn't that strict.

There are 3 types of curry at this cafe and everyone was ordering this, maybe it's the main character bias? This is the English style curry based on a 100+ year old recipe. It was supposedly medium spicy, but just tasted super mild to me, which checks out for an English recipe. If I'd had a less tempermental stomach that day I might have ordered the Soma dal curry or the butter chicken to see if those were any more flavourful. My bet is on the dal, but don't hold me to that.

(The plates are themed after the public school arc too and were in the merch section by the way.)

Soma's chai was well done, not too sweet (a big fear I had), and not too weak. The tea leaves are also in the merch section!

Part 1 here

Desserts! At this point I was live blogging the experience to a friend, so I took mental notes on what everything tasted like. Mostly unsurprising flavours here. Greenhill and Violet are obvious standouts.

Redmond Seemed like a combo of red currant and cranberry to me. It's very cute but nothing to write home about, just a plain cake with jelly and berries on top for flavour.

Bluewer Same deal as Redmond, but ramune flavoured. I was very glad I ate him first since I ended up liking this one the least.

Greenhill Bet you couldn't guess that it's matcha huh? That and red bean, which was pleasant to discover when I was expecting it to be chocolate. I upped the vibrance more on this photo so it's easier to see the reddish hue of the beans here.

Violet Why did he straight up get gold on his tart??? It looks so good with the purple too, I swear whoever came up with this menu was showing favoritism. Well I'm not complaining, it was the best one, with purple sweet potato on top of a cheesecake tart.

The cake I should have gotten

There was this personal-sized cake. You got to choose between Sebastian and Ciel as your cake topper, and for the month of December Ciel's topper is a special "Happy Birthday" one. I was there on my literal birthday. The person next to me ordered it after they'd finished their food. I almost asked if I could take a picture of their order. (I stand by the cake itself not looking that appetizing in the photo, nor in real life, but for all I know it might have been a fluffy cheesecake.) Shout out to my friend who wanted the Undertaker everything so bad I had to go back and order his drink to get his tag. It's black sesame, and for what it's worth didn't set off my stomach with lactose. The flavour of the sesame made it difficult to figure out if they'd used a milk alternative though.

The merch was all in the front of the cafe, where the public school arc OP and ED played on loop, quietly. Just loud enough to acknowledge it was there. Included in the merch were acrylic stands, can badges, the British curry in particular, Soma's tea as mentioned in part 1, two plates, two cups, curry spoons with Soma, Sebastian, or Ciel on them, tote bags, and charms. My list isn't as detailed as it could be, so I also took a video of the entire merch area.

I snatched up a Soma spoon and chai for myself, anything with Undertaker for a friend, and got 2 free mini badges for my trouble. You get one for every 2500 yen you spend on merch, and you do actually get to pick who you get.

Soma's chai comes with a recipe card inside with the same art from the outside of the box on it. I really hope it's legit.

Yeah, we can have lunch with Shouto and Izuku cut-out, too.

100 times yes eating with a Bakugou cut-out!!

Reserve your seat here. 

@saisai-chan​ you'd probably want to do this. 

Having ice-cream with Uraraka :”>

Located within Pinko shopping area, at the B16 exit of Shinjuku Station, this café is located on the B3 Level which takes you through a food hall and down the rabbit hole via an elevator located towards the back. When you first arrive, you will see a lovely display case full of fake food showing off the assortment of sets you can choose from and a small sign welcoming you inside. The reception looks like you are in a very large library as the front desk is a stack of what appears to be giant books and if there is no one there the bell on top may be pressed. Once done a man wearing what appears as a tuxedoed style mad hatter appears to take your reservation number or just find a table for you if you don’t have a reservation all ready and escort to your table. There is a 500 yen cover charge per person and requires you to order a food item and drink so be prepared to spend money. There are three clear sections to the room- the Big Heart, the Hatter’s Tea Party and the Queen’s Garden. The Big Heart area is the main focus of the room as the giant chandelier made of pink hearts hangs over a large heart shaped table with red plush chairs surrounding it. Since it mainly is only available for those who make reservations, it is Ideal for larger parties for up to 10 people and brings a very romantic atmosphere to the space. In the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party area where my friend Jules and I sat a far wall is printed with a large illustration of Alice and the Tea Party scene as well as some others with the playing card characters. Along the wall are pink tufted couch filled with bright pink chairs giving a very cute feel while throughout the rest of the space are tables with plush mismatched chairs (recognizant of Mad Hatter’s style). Each table in this area is adorned with folded napkins in the shape of hats which brings everything together. The last area is Queen’s Garden which features faux grass covered booths complete with additional small shrubbery sticking out of the top and flower pillows to make it even more comfy. Once seated my friend Jules and I were handed a menu in the form of a storybook (with English included) by our waitress who of course was named Alice and recommended certain dishes before leaving us to decide on our own. After a thorough glance at all of the options, I opted for the Heart Queen’s Dinner Set, which comes with a main dish of Stewed Tomato with Tsukuba Dori Chicken and Kitaakari Potatoes, bread, appetizer, and salad plate with dessert (which changes daily) all for 1880 yen. To simply make our order we shouted out “Alice!” and our waitress came right away. The appetizer came first bearing two tea cups of cold corn soup and two crackers with hearts cut out of them. The waitress instructed us to be careful as we might shrink if we eat it too fast. It was a very nice combination as the chilled soup was very refreshing after a somewhat long day in the heat and the crackers were satisfyingly crispy making it the perfect thing to dip in the soup. The salad plate came out next which had three chilled glass teacups on it. The first cup contained a set of chilled pickled vegetables- golden asparagus, broccoli, and a baby corn stuck into what tasted like mashed sweet potatoes which I personally love. The second was just some mixed greens topped with some parmesan cheese and some small red sprinkles making it look like a berry bush. And the last tiny teacup was the dessert which a small round of pound cake topped with a light and fluffy strawberry mousse and whipped cream perfectly fit into the cup. Along with the food, I also decided to get some of the café’s special mocktails since there was a great variety of them. I got the Alice’s Tea Party mocktail which contained rose syrup and peach juice and tea. Jules got the July cocktail from the birthstone drink menu which was themed “Ruby” containing cassis syrup (black currant flavor), rose syrup and soda water. Both were very delicious and made even better when stirred, which not only mixes the syrup and soda/ tea but also adds some magic to the drink to make it taste even better!