L’Occitane Cafe, Shibuya Tokyo

This is not a recent visit, even though I was just in Tokyo a few months ago. I had wanted to revisit but it was too crowded and I didn’t fancy waiting, so I gave it a miss then.

It was in December 2008 when I visited Tokyo and was told by my friend who was working there then, that a new cafe had opened in Shibuya, across from where the famous Starbucks at Shibuya Crossing sat. It was the L’Occitane cafe, which occupies the second and third level of the building, just above where the shop was, to the left of JR Shibuya’s Hachiko exit. I didn’t take any pictures of the cafe’s interior, but you can get a good idea of how it looks like from their website here, although it’s mostly in Japanese, so it’s a bonus if you can read it. I can’t, or I will have to take a really long time to just decipher a little of it, so I am not trying, especially not at this late hour. :p

We were there for a late breakfast that morning before going on to the Ramen Museum at Shin-Yokohama area, so we ordered a sandwich, which I believe could be the Croque L’Occitane (I can’t find this picture on the current menu though), something I spied off another customer’s table. This is just awesome, the toasted bread with the sunny-side up egg, one of the ways I love how my eggs are done, with a generous spread of cheese. Just thinking about it now makes me hungry.

And in this picture below, that was not a bowl of soup I had. Instead, it was a Cafe Au Lait, and just see how tiny the cake we had looked in comparison. I had a picture of the bowl with my face, and I think I could fit my face into it nicely, so you can just about imagine how abnormal a size of cup they were using to contain the beverage. It got a bit too much after a while, because it was like drinking a bowl of warm milk, but I like milk so it was still alright, and plus the weather outside that day was rather chilly, so it was a good way to keep myself warm.

The Tarte aux Fruits Rouges. I like berries, so this was a welcomed mixture of blue/straw/rasp-berries atop a nicely-baked tart, not too sweet and just that tolerable level of sourness to it.

In October 2009 when I went on another holiday to Japan, Tokyo was the last stop, and I decided to pay another visit to the cafe. On a morning, this was how the view of the cafe from the second level looked like. It’s odd to see the crossing so empty and devoid of commuters rushing across it but it was odd hours that we were there anyway, so there wasn’t much for us to see then.

This time round, we had the Tarte au Chocolat, which if I were to recall correctly, had a bit too much cocoa on it for my liking, and it got too rich even with the nice big cup of cafe latte. With the huge cup, it made for a great canvas to display coffee art!

Although personally, I still prefer watching the crossing from the vantage point of Starbucks, I think L’Occitane cafe offers a more interesting experience, especially since based on what I just read online (truth to be verified), there are only 2 of such cafes around, one in Shibuya and the other in Ikebukuro, not sure if there are any of it in other parts of the world. Plus their menu definitely looks more appetising, not that Starbucks doesn’t serve up decent food, but we can get the muffins and cakes in more places as compared to what we’re getting here.

So if you’re in Tokyo, you may want to just check this place out. Especially if you’re someone like me who takes visiting new cafes around the world (if I could) as an essential part of travelling.