Lilliput Speakeasy Bar in Tokyo

For my sons birthday, we had a short break in Tokyo with a books and food theme. The Lilliput speakeasy style bar is almost next door to the Book Hotel we were staying in.

On the main street, this looks like a regular bookshop that specialises in kids books but at night... the front door is locked and the only way is is through the unmarked door around the back. Look out for this light, it's the only thing that marks the entrance, it's small and easy to miss.

When you enter, you come into a small whisky bar with a great collection of records. There are only a few seats available here, all but one was taken when we arrived. We were led by the friendly bar tender into a second room which looks like it is used for events. It was set up with tables and chairs and looked like it might be good for a book club or that sort of thing.

Finally were led into the bookstore itself.

The bar when you enter

At the back of the bookstore is a counter, which I think might be used as a cafe during the day. We were shown to a table and given a menu and table snacks (the snacks you get to justify the seating charge!) 

The menu is pretty basic, not a lot of choice. Beer, wine, a handful of cocktails and a few bar snacks. It's not the place to come for a meal.

We enjoyed just chilling with a drink and reading in a bookshop as the novelty.

You are allowed to wander and look at the books, they are all Japanese kids books, which makes drinking beer and cocktails in there that little more weird! I do love looking at the illustrations in Japanese kids books and we had a bit of a trip down memory lane as we found some of Ebi-kun's old favourites.

We had our own books in our bag, so we just whipped them out and settled in for a relaxing hour or so.

If you fancy a drink but don't want the vibes of a bar, or you are an introvert and want a change of scenery but still be able to stick your nose in a book with a beer, then this is a perfect choice.

There were other people in there but everyone was respectful and quiet, almost like being in a library!

When you leave, take you tab to the counter at the back to pay, and leave through the secret back door.

INFO

Lilliput Bar, Jimbocho, Tokyo

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You Have To Go To The Monster Cafe

Ebi-kun and I decided to go for a mooch around Harajuku the other day, he has never really been which is ridiculous since he is 11 and lives just over an hour away - it's only right that he understands why the rest of the world thing that the Japanese are a little bit mad!

I asked around for somewhere cool to go for lunch and one of the suggestions was the Kawaii Monster Cafe - I googled it and clicking through to the website was enough for me to be convinced we needed to visit.

We arrived about midday and expected a long wait but we were the first in line and just had to wait 5 minutes or so whilst they finished the show. I'll post a video at the bottom to show how truely crazy the place was!

Have a guess what this is....

It's the sink in the bathroom!

As you can see it's somewhat like Willy-Wonkers Chocolate Factory inside, completely over the top! Brilliant! It is a total sensory overload - the music is quite load and you have a feeling of chaos in there.

The menu is bought to you on an ipad, took us a while to realise that you can order through the ipad, you call the waitress over! Most of the staff spoke English at some level and it was packed with non-Japanese.

We went for the fries with dips - which were not as we expected them to be, Blue - sour cream, orange - cheese, green - wasabi, yellow - mustard, red - salsa.

Ebi-kun had an interesting drink which came with two test tubes, you had to pour the contents into the glass but in a specific order...

We also ordered chicken in chocolate sauce, which I admit sounds pretty grim but it was absolutely delicious!

And we had a "candy salad" not candy inside, it was a noraml healthy salad! We shared the dishes and it just about did us, we decided to get desert somewhere else a bit later. The food and drinks were all lovely, price was pretty standard but you do have to pay a seating charge of ¥500 per person, which pushes the price up.

We were also stung at the end, the staff do a show on the carousel then at the end they invite you up for photos. I didn't see the sign until it was too late... you have to pay ¥500 for the pleasure and you get a jelly lolly to help soften the blow - learn from my mistake!

All in all it was a good laugh, not somewhere we would go more than once unless we were taking friends. It's worth a visit for sure. As you leave there is also a small shop so you can buy souvenirs too.

This is the website, it's worth going to check it out! http://kawaiimonster.jp/pc/

And the video, it's a bit mad!