Friday, April 13, 2012

Hanafusa Cafe はなふさ


If you are partial to a cigarette with your coffee (or comfortable with passive smoking) and happen to be roaming around the northern Okazaki area of Kyoto - pop in to Hanafusa near the Marutamachi / Shirakawa intersection - just east of the gas station/Doutour fast food cafe on the northern side of Marutamachi street. 

Its rather old school and charming in its own smokey way - with the coffee masters wearing white shirts, waiter's vests and almost hidden, slightly embarrassed, but nevertheless genuine smiles.  They advise they are the original cafe in Kyoto to serve coffee made with siphons. And its pretty good. I have tried a few of their selection including this Vienna coffee above but my friend Ricky tells me the cafe au lait is the best of the bunch and I can attest that it is indeed very good. 

There are all kinds of alcohol laced numbers and the place is one of the few joints in the town open until the wee hours - so it is rather unique for Kyoto. 

The refrigerated case houses "rare" cheesecake with a blueberry sauce, baked cheesecake and coffee jelly. There are also a few sandwiches on offer from the kitchen - think plastic cheese and salad, club sandwich, ham sandwich, chicken sandwich.. you get my drift.  And you can order them fresh or toasted. My pick, if you need to eat there,  is the  'Tamago' or egg sandwich  - which has one of old gents whipping up a fresh, thin omelette  - still warm by the time it reaches your table. There's a scraping of Japanese mayo on fluffy white bread, a few slices of cucumber, lettuce and tomato and note that you will likely need to season it (but salt is brought to the table and placed alongside the residing cigarette lighters in their own rubber foot stands). 

There is an English menu. 

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