Nihon Cafe - Shaw — Restaurant in Mandaluyong

I'm always looking for a place that offers food and coffee and is available 24 hours. Definitely love the ambiance of the place too as it helps you relax and I've been going here for more than a year now.

The main selling point is really their coffee choices. All the coffee taste great, plus the presentation is definitely good! As for the food, they're fine - looks nice, but the taste lacks the "authentic" taste of things, coming from someone who frequently goes to Japan. Understandable, of course. My go to would always just be their takoyaki platter.

However, I don't recommend going here at around 6-10pm during the peak traffic hours as it does get a bit noisy due to the traffic as well as whenever the elderly crew is there..

My main concern there is whenever there's an old person or lolo/tatay there serving the drinks or food - and before I wrote this review, looks like people are also saying the same thing about him. Medyo ma-PR siya.

While he is warm and friendly at first.. but he does tend to ask a lot of personal questions which I find really weird, even asking where we live and what do we do for a living for example.. Aside from that, whenever I'm with somebody else like my girlfriend or my co-workers, he tends to randomly pop out and starts making conversations.

It's also weird how he tends to talk about other customers' private lives - which makes you think if he's also sharing your stories to other people without your consent. Medyo "maangas" rin magsalita once he feels like we're close, really heavily using the "old age" card so he could get through saying some stuff so we just smile and laugh out of "respect." even if he tends to start talking badly to us when we're not able to hear or notice him talking to us - or avoid, honestly.

This is the reason why we rarely go there during the early evening time anymore and would rather go to other branches. Instead of being able to relax and talk about life with the people we came there with, nasisira lang yung mood because of him.

Hopefully you guys will be available on Grab or FoodPanda so we could still enjoy your food without having to...

Small cozy nook along Shaw Blvd across a medical/clinic complex... We went here last night (07Dec'24) as I saw this as a recommendation in one online article of best places to eat that are open 24/7... It is basically a cafe that serves Japanese foods on their menu... Spanish latte - their best seller, having tasted "spanish latte" from a lot of coffee outlets, it is very good.. Lemon cucumber - a bit on the sweet side, probably instant - as it has no hint of lemon or cucumber whatsoever.. Food - my review of the food we ordered hopefully will help improve the store's output in the future - having tasted Japanese food locally, internationally and in the land of the rising sun from the cheapest to the expensive ones... Tonkotsu Ramen - expecting a pork based item but taste is same with that of "seafood flavor" of nissin cup ramen (japanese made) - it even has plenty of kani inside instead of chasu pork (not a single piece), egg was hard boiled and noodles was probably of the instant ones - for the price, we expected more... Wagyu cubes - we ordered the "premium curry", rice and curry were on the side with grated veggies and mayo...it was a let down, for the price the "wagyu" cubes were overly cooked...the supposedly premium curry was too thin like soup and veggie with mayo was too salty...we also ordered the one with rice meal with same set up but have teriyaki sauce on the side instead of curry...wagyu and veggies are the same but the teriyaki sauce was good... Jalapeno cheese stick- taste and texture was very good, you will feel the heat after a few chews... Staff was attentive - you have to write your own order though on a piece of paper and give it to them.... Hope the store improves their take on the ramen and cooking of wagyu (even if it's the ordinary kind) and Jap...

No service water. How come?? No outside food/drinks.

We enjoyed our stay anyway. Tatay Rading is their staff, an old man, on a night shift duty. He was very friendly and handed us the wifi pw promptly. I wish they transfer him on day shift.

Their food menu is on the pricey side, might be due to cover the cost of 24hr operation.

I think they use beer mugs which is delightful because it's big and I feel like Im getting more.

Dark Mocha - I find it lacking in chocolate. It's very bitter.

Salted Caramel Macchiato Float - Must try! The ice are made of coffee, topped with 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream. Milk is on a separate glass. It's sweet but it gets so much better when the ice starts melting.

Blueberry Cheesecake - So good! The blueberry doesn't taste artificial/lasang gamot. I rarely like these toppings but I really enjoyed this one.

Nachos Solo - It was okay, could be for 2 pax.

Place is small but cold and well lit....