Kirby car cake is the true breakfast of champions.
I’m not really much of a big breakfast eater. Most of the time I’m happy with some granola or fruit, or maybe an onigiri rice ball from the convenience store if I’ve got a busy morning and need something I can eat on the go.
So it felt a little weird the other day to roll out of bed, take a shower, get dressed, and then go eat a cake first thing in the morning. But you know what? That sort of indulgence made sense, because on that day I was having breakfast at a cafe based on a Nintendo character whose whole thing is that there’s no limit to how much he can devour.
Tokyo is one of the cities lucky enough to have a permanent Kirby Cafe. Located in the Solamachi complex at the base of the Skytree, the Kirby Cafe has been in business for a while now, but there’s a new reason to visit as the restaurant recently rolled out its new winter menu items.
With first-timers and repeat visitors wanting to scarf down the new Kirby chow, getting a table isn’t easy, and the only one my friend and I could snag was for 10:15 in the morning. But hey, it’s hard to feel any lingering sleepiness when you’re surrounded by so much cute artwork from the series, plus jazzy remixes of the games’ background music flowing from the cafe’s speakers.
Your reservation is for an 85-minute block, which isn’t so strange for popular restaurants in Japan. What is unusual, though, is that you have to order everything you want to eat or drink all in one go, and can’t add anything else on later. So, naturally, just about every table orders at least one of the Mouthful Mode Car Mouth Cake Winter Horns version, a callback to Kirby’s new power in the Kirby and the Forgotten Land game and its in-game Waddle Dee Cafe. The staff also brings your food out as it’s ready, and it worked out the cake was the first thing we were served.
▼ Breakfast!
From the preview photos for the cake, I’d sort of expected it to be a gigantic car-shaped scoop of whipped cream, but turned out to be something far more gourmet: blancmange, a type of creamy-tasting firm milk gelatin that’s similar to custard, but without the egg. It jiggles when jostled, just like you’d imagine Kirby himself would.
The Kirby car is tricked out with a variety of edible accouterments, including chocolate wheels, a Pocky-ish front bumper, and apple slice taillights.
It definitely creates the character food conundrum: it looks really, really tasty but also really, really like the adorable character its based on. Looking around, pretty much everyone in the cafe made the same decision of starting from the back of the car when eating, since there’s less guilt involved with eating Kirby’s corner panel than his face.
The roadside scenery is also edible too, with crunchy chocolate trees, kiwi slice hills, and gelatin ice crystals.
Getting the cake first put us in the odd situation of having to save room for our main dishes, but even before they arrived the waitress brought over my friend’s latte, with its full-color latte art.
Latte art is available for cafe au lait, hot chocolate, and even a fruity “mixed berry au lait” drink. And unlike many themed cafes in Japan, where the pattern you get is random, the Kirby Cafe actually lets you pick which of 11 different designs you want, including three new ones just added for winter.
Not long after, our main dishes came: the Winter Kirby Hamburger and Creamy White Sauce Pasta…
…and the Kirby Loco Moco Rice Bowl.
Since the container is yours to take home with you, the actual food is served inside a removable tray, so that your souvenir doesn’t get dirty.
This is sort of a unique take on loco moco, in that it’s got cheese and tomato too, but it’s not half-bad as an all-in-one meal that gives you protein, rice, and veggies.
The burger, which is actually a cheeseburger, gets extra style points for giving Kirby a thin egg “scarf” to keep him warm against the winter chill.
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It’s accompanied by pasta, corn potage soup, and some square omelets. Oh, and there’s also a “Do not eat” warning printed on the back of the decorative paper Kirby character art stuck into the omelets, as it’s one of the few on-plate representations of the charter at the café that’s not edible.
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After snapping a few more pictures, it was time to pay our bill. As with most restaurant in Japan, you pay at the register, not at your table, and the Kirby Cafe’s register is conveniently located in…
…the attached gift shop, which is stocked with all sorts of special merch.
The lineup includes plates and cutlery used in the cafe, CDs of its background music, and, right now, winter fashion items.
▼ The Waddle Dee cafe staff coffee cup sleeves are especially clever.
This gift shop is only accessible by cafe customers, though there is a separate Kirby store in the Solamachi shopping center that anyone can just walk into. There’s some overlap between the two stores’ inventories, but certain items are only available at one or the other.
▼ The mall shop is called, somewhat confusingly, Kirby Cafe The Store, but is separate from the store inside the Kirby Cafe.
Reservations for the Tokyo Kirby Cafe can be made online here, and the chain’s Hakata (Fukuoka) and Nagoya branch’s reservations here and here. Just remember, though, that the order system means you won’t be able to take a “I’ll wait and see if I’m still hungry before I order more” approach, so you’ll want to bring your Kirby-class appetite, no matter what time your reservation is for.
Cafe information
Kirby Cafe (Tokyo branch) / カービィカフェ（東京店）
Address: Tokyo-to, Sumida-ku, Oshiage 1-1-2, Tokyo Skytree Town Solamachi East Yard4 th floor
東京都墨田区押上1-1-2東京スカイツリータウン・ソラマチイーストヤード 4F
Open 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
Website
Photos ©SoraNews24
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