I was taking it easy at home over the weekend when I somehow ended up heading out to Shimokitazawa. A famous place called Cicoute Cafe was about to close for good, and someone told me I should go at least once.
The sky, seen while queueing
When I got there the line was longer than I expected. I waited over an hour.
The front entrance
From the outside it looks like an ordinary cafe.
The water glass..
I finally got in and sat down, and just from the water glass I could tell this was not a serious food place.
A cocktail, was it..
An unusual drink, but the taste was just so-so.
Salad
Hmm.. they took ordinary ingredients and made a prettily plated home-style salad. A cafe kitchen is inevitably small, so it is not easy to make dishes that need real prep.
Stewed vegetables
Just about good enough to eat.
Black muffin
Apparently the muffins are what this place is most famous for. It is baked well and not bad at all, but queueing for an hour to eat one is a bit much.
White muffin
This one was a little better than the black. The taste is fine, but I kept wishing it had been a sandwich with more substantial filling.
Dessert
This one is simple too.
Cicoute Cafe has a nice atmosphere and the food is decent enough, but the limits of being a cafe keep it far from real gourmet dining. The guy serving us was good-looking, and I did wonder whether that is part of why the place is so popular. Well, I can understand why women love cafes like this, but for a middle-aged guy like me, the best kind of place is one that is cheap and tasty with a good range of drinkable booze.