Category: Cafes

  • Bird Coffee

    If I find myself in Osaka, I’m definitely going to make a point of checking out Bird Coffee. Produced by Truck Furniture, it’s a beautiful cafe, and I recommend you take time going through the videos on their site — those donuts look delicious.

  • 50 Tokyo Cafes

    Time Out Tokyo has a list up of what they consider to be the top cafes in Tokyo. It’s quite the decent list — of course, there’s sure to be someone’s favorite missing — and a good place to start if you’re on the lookout for new spots to check out. Nice to see Fuglen…

  • Guide to Yanaka

    My buddy Said Karlsson has written quite a few guides for Navitime’s JapanTravel site, and his latest contribution is for the lovely Yanaka neighborhood of Tokyo. The best thing about these posts is that they all feature great photography by Said. I also like this post that offers up a selection of kissaten (old style coffeeshops).

  • Mother 1+2 Piano Concert

    If I was in Tokyo today, I would have made a point of going to Joseph’s Pico Pico Cafe for a piano concert of music from the first two Mother games (known as EarthBound in the west) by Kousuke Hata. You can also purchase two CDs of his Mother music at the cafe.

  • Goods at the Gundam Cafe

    I’m looking at the goods page from the Gundam Cafe in Tokyo, and I pretty much want everything there (my wife screamed when she saw the dishes, like the plate with Char, pictured). Found via my buddy Andrew, who got this glass (which I want too).

  • Portland in Tokyo

    This was definitely something that I was already seeing before I left Tokyo, and I see that it has continued with gusto. I’m referring to the growing love of all things Portland in Tokyo, via quirky cafes/bars that go as far as serving imported craft beers from the city. Here’s a piece that offers up…

  • Kokoro & Moi & Escalator Records

    Back during the heights of the Shibuya-kei scene, Escalator Records was one of my favorite labels, and I loved visiting its shop and cafe as well. Kokoro & Moi were responsible for a lot of the label’s branding (including at their physical spaces), and it’s nice to see a few examples here. Now I really…

  • Picotachi Vol. 35

    The indie gaming scene in Tokyo is on the rise — the Branching Paths documentary illustrates this quite nicely — and one of the components of that growing scene is the Picotachi series. Organized by game dev Joseph White at his Pico Pico Cafe — a lovely space in Kichijoji — it’s a bilingual show-and-tell series…

  • Cafe Pause Mini-site Updated

    Not that it’s really worth mentioning, but I updated my Cafe Pause mini-site, taking away the blog and simply keeping it as an info page — basically, somewhere to link to when I mention the cafe in a post (since the cafe’s own site is in Japanese). I used the lovely illustration Luis created for…

  • Opening of Diesel Concept Store in Shibuya

    Thursday night I was out in Shibuya for the opening reception of the new Diesel Concept Store, which opens to the public today (November 20). Like the Diesel Denim Gallery in Aoyama, the store features a gallery space, and the opening show is Simon Henwood and Fannie Schiavoni’s “Black Sun” (until February 23). I rather…