Yonchome Café

Hang with the hipsters at this late-night spot in Koenji

Photos by Tsutomu Fujita

Just a two-minute walk from Koenji station on the Chou line, Yonchome Café is a funky, friendly, laid-back joint. Hipsters with soul patches and stocking caps lounge in T-shirts and fashionably torn jeans under the slow rotations of wooden-bladed fans suspended from a chocolate-colored pressed tin ceiling that went out of fashion when my grandfather was in knee pants.

The light over the eclectic collection of marble-topped and wooden tables, the mix of bentwood chairs, the black iron railings and the dark wood floor is softly diffused by the antique stained-glass fixtures. Rough mosaics of cut glass in reds, blues and silvers, and bits of mirrored glass decorate the columns that support the ceiling. And “sodas” are announced in large red stained-glass letters in a soda-fountain script popular when that cola drink still had cocaine in it.

The food here is good if not great—though some dishes are. It’s more of a place to hang out. The diner-style menu touches all bases: starters, pastas, salads, pizzas, rice dishes, omelettes, nachos, hamburgers and sandwiches. Beverages are well covered too: martinis and margaritas, gin tonics and salty dogs, plus wines, beers, and other drinkables.

On a recent evening the starters included marinated shrimp and vegetables (¥600), marscapone and honey (¥550), a salad of crispy-fried tortilla chips and plump shrimp (¥750), and prosciutto with gorgonzola. Several slices of paper-thin ham came wrapped around crisp batons of focaccia that rested on generous chunks of cheese that had been drizzled with olive oil (¥1,000). Very good.

The featured daily special of spinach gnocchi in tomato sauce was special only in its disappointing chewiness (¥1,150). Maybe the cook was having a bad day. But the other daily special, basilico rosso pasta with fresh mozzarella, started to repair his reputation. The pasta was al dente and the sauce was bright and tasty (¥1,050). And with his “Israeli Salad,” constructed of three kinds of lettuce topped with a colorful dice of red pepper, tomato, cucumber, celery, onion and black olive and dressed with an oil and vinegar vinaigrette, he erased the memory of chewy gnocchi. Two sizes of this oddly-named salad are available. The medium-sized bowl (¥600) is plenty for two.

If you’re a fan of pancetta, you’re in luck. There is pancetta salad, pancetta pizza, pancetta omelette and pancetta pasta. Besides pancetta, though, the extensive menu offers appetizing snapshot photos of dishes such as fried onion rings with honey mustard sauce (¥600), taco rice (¥1,000), nachos with jalapeño peppers (¥850), a chili burger deluxe (¥1,050), a BLT sandwich (¥850) and, surprisingly, an oil sardine sandwich (¥900).

Several desserts are offered, but try the affogato. You’ll receive
a sturdy cup filled with vanilla ice cream and a tiny pitcher of steamy espresso fortified with a liquor of your choice: amaretto, cassis, or dark Meyer’s rum. Pour the brew little by little over the ice cream and enjoy (¥650).
Yonchome Cafe is open until 3am every day of the year. Stop in if for nothing else than the Belle Vue Kriek, a lovely cherry beer, on tap for ¥500.

4-28-10 Koenji Minami, Suginami-ku, Tel: 03-5377-1726. Open daily 11:30am-3:00am. Menu in Japanese and mangled English. Non-smokers will have to brave the balcony.

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