An Evening at the JPOP cafe
After being there for about an hour waiting for something exciting to happen a song called Chocolate Disco came on the giant JPop screen at the other end of the room, I suddenly realized all the hype all the excitement and all the anticipation was for absolutely nothing. The best part of the night was in fact the song. The beat was cute, the girls were cute and the video was also well, cute. But we didn't go there for the music, although in retrospect we probably should have.
No, we went for the food and for the unparalleled atmosphere that we saw in the movie Babel. We wanted the feeling of youth, the crazy fucked up feeling of irresponsibility and wonderful food. We didn't get that, what we did get was a great place (with more potential than a young hot, not crazy Britney Spears) that was almost entirely empty at 9:30 on a Thursday night in the most populous and crowded city in the world. Since we were already there and determined to have a great time despite the lack of people, we ordered some drinks and began to try to enjoy the empty restaurant. J-Bu and I ordered Ume and Grape Sours respectively, and Kiko ordered a Gin and Tonic. The drinks were nothing to write home about...but they loosened us up a bit.
The wait for the food was very short, and if anything good can be said about JPop cafe at night, the speed of the service would have to be it. However in retrospect I wonder if the food was delivered quickly because the service was good, or because the place was empty. I am going to put my money on the latter. The first plate of food to come was the Oiled Sardines (1000yen). "That looks fairly interesting,” I said eyeing the plate sardines. "I like how they put it in the can like that." J-Bu and Kiko laughed aloud then and pointed out to me ever so kindly that they didn't put the sardines in the can, they simply left the sardines in the can they came in. We did find this highly creative and praised them greatly for this delicious appetizer.
For the last 10 minutes I have been trying to find a word that properly describes the taste of these little canned fish, and the best words to describe them are, sardine flavored. So if you want to spend nearly $10 on some very normal sardines, you know now where to go. Next came J-Bu's choice of Sweet Beef Sauté (980yen). This would probably have to been the best dish of the night, served on a curved hot plate; it is delicious meat and spicy kimchi with a green type of vegetable that I have yet to identify. I think we may find that J-Bu has better taste in food than me because the dish that I ordered was like something out of an eccentric pregnant woman's favorite food list. Allegedly this was a Hawaiian dish called a Loco Moco (980yen). I have had Loco Mocos before, but this one makes rotten old tomatoes look like a gourmet feast. When I first saw the dish, I grabbed the waitresses hand and peered into her eyes, and calmly asked, "What is this red stuff on my food?" The waitress trembled slightly and looked into my eyes with a kind of terror and said, "Its ketchup." At that moment, my night was ruined. There was no way I could enjoy this dish, not with the vile and disgusting condiment known as ketchup slowly sinking its sickening and putrid flavor into my potentially wonderful Hawaiian delight. I managed to get to a ketchup free untainted portion of the Loco Moco. I squealed with glee as I bit into it and recoiled with horror when the taste actually hit home. This was nothing like the Loco Mocos of my past that were something like dreams covered in chocolate. I ate this 'bentoish' dish (a bento being the prepackaged lunch boxes so popular here in Japan) and I didn't enjoy it. I felt that I should have some sort of retribution for stomaching this horrible imitation. So we ordered more drinks and hoped the alcohol would distract us from the sub par food, lack of people and the overall absence of excitement. We soon left there laughing and happy realizing that this restaurant was nothing liked we hoped for, nothing like that beautiful scene in Babel and was more like this:
Imagine going to a bookstore and finding a book titled: GREATEST BOOK EVER -a story of awesomeness. Then on the cover is a picture of a bear fighting a giant sea monster, with a monk riding on a dragon circling the brawl, with Brad Pitt and Angelina kissing passionately on the wreckage of a destroyed half sunken battle ship. Then you open the book and it is a guide to filling out your taxes, written in old English.
Overall JPop cafe was less than filling. http://www.j-popcafe.com/
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