Yesterday I rambled on a little bit about peaks and valleys.
Today’s peak is brought to you by an experience at another cafe.
This cafe is on the first floor of the Sfera Building in Kyoto. Here’s what the building looks like from the outside.
So it’s a little worn for wear now. This building has three floors. I didn’t explore the second and third floors, because I intend on taking my parents here when they visit in April. The interior design of this place is pretty slick. For reasons unbeknownst to me, I was the only person in the cafe. Granted, it was a little bit expensive, but well worth visiting.
And another!
You can’t get more Kyoto (or Japanese, that matter) than handmade sweets shaped like flowers.
These types of traditional, handmade sweets in Japan are delicious. This particular cafe only stocks a limited amount of these cakes every day because of the amount of skill and craftsmanship that goes into just one of them. This cake was filled with red bean paste and was probably one of the finest desserts I’ve consumed.
Seeing that I was the only person in the cafe, the woman working there decided to strike up a conversation with me. Opportunities like this are great for me because I can practice my Japanese and work on understanding the different types of Japanese people use. This woman spoke using very polite Japanese, which is a little bit more difficult for me to understand, but I could wrap my head around it after picking out the keywords of her questions.
So let me check my just-now invented checklist for what makes a good cafe…
Good food – check!
Good coffee – check!
Great service – check!
French Bulldogs – check!
Meet Tonto!
Tonto is a cheeky, bossy little thing. He decided to invite himself up onto the table when he noticed that food was there and up onto my seat when the potential for more pats was there. Tonto would also get preoccupied with whoever was standing around outside and decide to confront them and request for them to state their business or move along. Tonto ain’t got time for dilly-dallying around.
And this is Don.
Don is far more chilled out and laid back than Tonto. In fact, he didn’t really want to leave the warmth of the portable heater for the warmth of my pats. I can’t blame him, actually. But what you might not have noticed earlier is that in the second photo I posted of this cafe, Don was actually resting his head on a piece of the furniture because he’d had quite enough of Tonto’s shenanigans. Don literally just sat there resting his head against the block for a solid 10 minute stint.
The inclusion of French bulldogs isn’t necessary for a good cafe, but it certainly makes for an interesting experience. In fact, I didn’t even know before going into this cafe that there were French bulldogs there. There was a sign saying “Dogs welcome” and in my head I was like, “Oh, cool.”
I walk in, see Tonto and Don and in my head, my exact thoughts were “THIS PLACE IS AWESOME!”
And we’re out of time for today. Until tomorrow!
tonto. dognap. now.
These things need a solid plan. I’m in the process of devising said plan now.