After years of being told about The Longest Shopping Arcade in Japan, I visited the Palm Plaza, which indeed was very long. It was much like any other shopping arcade in Tokyo, which is to say it was awesome. I’ve noticed even in the few years I’ve been in Japan that these arcades have slowly been taken over by chain stores, but many of the shops remain mom and pop operations with lots of cheap stuff and more dried marine life than you can shake a chopstick at. Continue reading
My biggest complaint about museums is the crappy to mediocre cafes. You just had a hopefully profound art experience, and you want to either a) talk about it with your friend over some good coffee, b) write about it in your journal over some good coffee, or c) space out and process what you just saw over some good coffee. Whatever option you choose, good coffee must be involved. Or even better, there should be some other drink that makes you abandon the coffee. But that’s not all.
You also want that cafe to continue the art experience, with cool or warm, whimsical or elegant decor. A thoughtful menu helps. Relaxing natural lighting shouldn’t be optional. Nothing should be served in a plastic or paper cup. The drinks shouldn’t be made from instant powder. The food shouldn’t have been frozen 5 minutes ago and unfrozen 2 minutes ago in a microwave.
Am I asking too much?
I finally found a great museum cafe. Cafe Hai is the cafe of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (I’ve got a dozen museums and exhibits I’ve been wanting to write about but I keep writing about this one!) The restaurant serves Vietnamese food in plates, bowls and cups that are used in food stalls in Vietnam. There’s a wall menu with items priced in dong, the Vietnamese currency. All in the simple aesthetic of the slow food movement. In short, a lot of thought went into this space.
The drink menu was so intriguing that we ordered the delicious frothy concoctions. Like a good art exhibit, the cafe offered something new and irresistible. They were served on bamboo root shaped coasters.
It was so good we went back after perusing the permanent collection and had their coffee (served Vietnamese style with tin filters) and the Moroccan pancakes (there were several Moroccan dishes and drinks too).
Even the staff had a cinematic quality to them. Instead of some soulless vendor who wants to squeeze as much money as they can out of their 2 year lease, the women at Cafe Hai seemed like they cared about providing an experience that vibed with being surrounded by art.
Suggested reading: Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hahn.
Recommended company: Your favorite zazen buddy.
Film to watch when you get home: Vertical Ray of the Sun.
When I write these restaurant and café reviews I purposely omit the places I go to regularly. But because I rarely go to Shibuya anymore I can disclose what used to be one of my regular haunts.
Chamate is a little oasis in crowded Shibuya, tucked away under the 3rd floor eaves of Loft (one of the coolest furniture and house wares emporiums in town). Though it’s a Chinese teahouse, the décor is that Scandinavian pastel look that’s popular with the leisure matron crowd. The clientele however are pensive, conservatively dressed young women. In the few times that I’ve seen men, they’ve invariably been in a suit and tie. I guess there’s something formal about the place, or about tea in general. Here’s a link to their site, demonstrating how to serve tea, Chinese style.
Even though it’s in a popular store off a densely traversed street, the only time it’s ever busy is during lunch on the weekends. And you can still get a table. Or you can sit at the counter overlooking the street.
While I hadn’t been there in over a year, T has been using it as a relaxing meeting place with her friends. So it was nice to see new dishes. The lunch set’s a bit pricier than the norm, but the food quality is quite high. T had a lush dim sum set that came with tea. I ordered something more architectural. The centerpiece was a soft-boiled egg set in a nest of crispy noodles, a fitting image for a long-awaited spring.
I imagine the best way to appreciate this café is to watch Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love, then put on your cheongsam if you’re a woman, or your rat pack suit if you’re a man. Then meet your secret tryst and sip tea with restrained desire.
Or, for the less dramatic, you can peruse the beautiful lifestyle toys in Loft, then settle down with your favorite Tang Dynasty poet (Hanshan is a good one) and a pot of chrysanthemum tea.
This past week, I stumbled upon a Frank Lloyd Wright building. Who knew that Mejiro, one of the minor stops on the Yamanote Line is one of the hotbeds of architecture in Tokyo. There are a lot of gems in this neighborhood, most notable is Kenzo Tange’s St. Mary’s Cathedral, which strangely is one of the most popular posts on my blog.
Hana Yorozu Café and Gallery
Anyway, this is how I came upon the Wright building.
I decided to wander off into a small street off Mejiro street that seemed intriguing and was drawn to a café that was a gallery and flower shop, called Hana Yorozu.
Plants, art and crepes? It was an irresistible combination so I stepped inside. The gallery was mostly beadwork. Nicely done, with some unusual beads in the necklaces and bracelets. But it was the kind of stuff most anyone could have put together at a bead store for a fraction of the cost.
Connected through the wall was the flower shop/nursery. A nice collection of herbs and flowers, but the prices were also a bit inflated.
Thankfully, the crepe lunch set was more affordable. It came with decent coffee, a tiny plate of crunchy salad and a bowl of tasty tomato cheese soup. And my egg and ham crepe was very yummy. I chuckled when I realized how typically American I was to choose basically a glorified breakfast slam.
The staff seemed a little frazzled and disorganized, even though there was only one other table of people. I imagined that the business was run by a few friends who went to France together, really dug the crepes, took a cooking class to learn how to make them and opened up the café. One of them makes beaded jewelry and wanted to sell them. The other one wanted to grow lavender. Et voila! What was meant to be a lovely vacation dream had turned into an overwhelming business!
I’m being unkind. Luckily, I wasn’t in any hurry and I really did appreciate the care that was put into the atmosphere and the food.
Who to take: friends from your French cooking class.
What to do: write postcards to people you met while traveling in Provence.
What to read: The Little Prince
Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan, 1921
At the gallery there was a stack of little pamphlets that unfolded into a map of all the other galleries in the area. On the map I noticed there was a note in katakana of a landmark of a Franku Roydo Wrighto building. Since it was only a few blocks away I decided to take a stroll over there.
What I found were two buildings, one by Wright and another designed by Arata Endo in the Wrightian style. The one by Wright is a single storey U-shaped complex that encloses a courtyard. It appeared to be privately owned and was used as a wedding event place. It had a great example of Wright’s glasswork. Dramatic vertical panes were set in a typical Prairie style horizontal façade. Unfortunately, the inside was closed to the public that day. I’ll have to go another time and snoop around more closely.
The other building, connected by an alley seemed to be some kind of community center. There were many kids with their mothers. This building seemed to be designed to be a church.
I later found out that it was a lecture hall for the Jiyu Gakuen, or Freedom School. Wright was asked to design the school while he was in Japan overseeing the construction of the Imperial Hotel. The gorgeous Imperial Hotel has since been dismantled and replaced with a high-rise style Imperial Hotel. So the Jiyu Gakuen is one of a few works of Wright still standing.
I was heartened to see so much activity in and around the buildings. They were living, vital parts of the community, instead of calcified structures cordoned off to the public.
The Hakone Open Air Museum is a large park filled with an excellent collection of sculpture, as well as several indoor galleries. It’s my favorite museum in Japan because of its large collection of Henry Moore sculptures. And because there aren’t too many things in life better than appreciating art outdoors.
The museum is actually a collection of smaller museums and galleries, as well as the various outdoor areas dotted with installations.
A Brief Rant on the Terrible Coffee of Museum Cafés
The bookstore café has interesting mid-century décor, but the coffee is the usual mediocre overpriced cup of weak mud. I wonder when museums will realize that an afternoon of great art is sullied by bad coffee.
I don’t mind the over-priced part because the cafés are usually quite stylish or artistic. Just make the coffee good. It doesn’t have to be great, just make it decent. I’ll even take anonymous and un-noteworthy.
Don’t make me look down and notice an inferior beverage. Also, for crying out loud, for $4-8, get it out of the cheap paper cup, and put it into a mug or glass cup. And hey, why not throw in a freaking chocolate square or a candied almond!?
A Post-Rant Conclusion
Bad coffee aside, I love the Hakone Open-Air Museum. It’s the best bang for your buck in terms of an art experience, with varied galleries, lots of interactive opportunities, all in a dramatic outdoor space.
