Coffee & Toast — Restaurant in Tokyo

I came here by accident. I was really trying to go to the burger place next door. I didn't realize that I was in the wrong place until I was already reading the menu and looking at the pictures on the wall. I was curious, so I stayed. But I wasn't sure what this place was all about. I had never seen all the social media coverage. Apparently this is an Instagram famous Tokyo place and I'm really lucky I didn't have to wait in line.

If you've never seen the pictures I'm not sure you'd understand the menu. I certainly didn't. So, I just ordered the first thing on it. The deep-fried million layer ham and cheese cutlet sandwich. While I was waiting, I saw them serve a bunch of other things to other people and everything looked great. Not just pretty, but food porn pretty. Like it was all gooey and cheesy and meaty and fatty and full of sauces and gravy. Very erotic in a food sort of way. The guy next to me got a steak sandwich that looked great, chopped meat like a Philly cheese steak piled between two thick cut slices of toast, cheese oozing out the sides. The table behind me got some sort of square Pullman loaf bread with like three or four cheesy burger patties popping out of it.

When my food came, it was equally as stunning to look at. I admit, I posted it on Instagram. Just look at my photos, it's not only layered in ham and cheese stripes, it also has the dripping white cheese. The perfect amount. In the perfect places. Visually, it's appealing. Very appealing. Like these guys should get into the Instagram food stylist business. I've shown these photos to all my friends. This food was made for the smartphone camera.

Flavorwise, however, it was just fine. I mean it's deep fried ham and cheese, what could be bad? Maybe it was even good. Maybe it was even REALLY good. But it doesn't taste as good as it looks. I'm not sure anything will ever taste as good as it looks. This is not necessarily criticism. I'm impressed. I think it's the first meal I've ever had anywhere in which the presentation truly over-hypes the product.

It's expensive for lunch: 4-5000 yen per person. But if you're visiting Tokyo for a week or two and you find yourself in Sangenjaya and you want a picture to post on Instagram that will make all your friends back home jealous that you're enjoying the incredible food in Japan, it's...

We waited outside for about an hour to be let in but we expected this after reading previous comments online.

During the wait, the staff asked one of the other customers to leave because they couldn't admit a party of three people. They had been waiting for a while so I felt bad for them since there was no information provided about not accepting groups of three people. There was a small sign at the entrance to the shop but due to people lining up Infront of it, it wasn't visible at all until you reached the front of the line.

After we got in, there was no menu and we had to look around the shop for pictures of food to find what we wanted to order. I think it's good for presentation but I'd rather have my food on a menu Infront of me. This can also be bad if you don't have good eyesight.

We finally decided our food which came pretty quickly. The appearance was very nice as we expected from seeing Instagram posts online.

The taste however, was very average which wouldn't earn a one star by itself but when combined with the huge cost it incurred, earns the low score.

We basically payed about 2500 each for a piece of oversized bread which managed to be heavy, rich, and bland at the same time.

Wouldn't go back.

PLEASE DON'T GO HERE IN GROUPS OF 3 OR...

I went with a group of 4 thinking we could easily just split up 2 and 2 because there's a sign that reads "no groups larger than 2". After being the first to line up, and waiting around 15min, the owner came out and told 2 of us that we had to leave because we can't split up or else we would "talk to each other inside". I explained to him that it would be pretty simple not to talk to each other if we were let inside but he explained that he tried this in the past but it "didn't work out". It's a strange rule considering we could have gone inside had we just said "we don't know these people" and pretended not to be friends with our other party of 2. What would happen if you ran into friends in line? Ultimately me and another friend had to leave. We later heard from the 2 friends that were able to enter that the food was alright, a lot smaller than it looks...