181. totoro hunting

Yesterday Laura and I went hunting for Totoro Cream Puffs in the rain.  We met up at Shindaita Station and let goolge maps guide us. It didn't take too long to find the bakery, it was only a 5 minute walk from the station. The only thing was that you'd have to be observant and keep a look out for a small Totoro sign. The bakery is located at a really secluded area of a residential area, at the corner of the street. Luckily, I could see the sign peeking out of the corner so we didn't have to get more lost (and wet) in the rain.

The place is actually a two-storey house turned into a bakery on the first floor and cafe on the second. It had a warm welcoming feeling, the kind that you would get when you visit your grandma because of all the wood interior. The entrance of the house also was decorated with a ton of cute Totoro things and frames of Shiro Hige's mascot on the walls. Couldn't resist taking photos. 

The lady at the bakery told us we could eat our cream puffs at the cafe since we reserved them a couple of days earlier. So, the both of us climbed up the stairs to the cafe and decided to have lunch at there because the pasta smelled so good. The cafe was pretty crowded for a place that is so hidden. We both ordered the same pasta, I'm not sure what exactly it's called now but it was really yummy and it came with a drink on the side, I got hot tea.

They served us our cream puffs after we were done with our main course. The brown leaf ones are maron flavour, and the green leaf one is custard. The maron one is an autumn special and was so good, there were bits of chestnuts in them and they were generous with the filling. I felt a little bad to slice open the cute little Totoro but had no choice, haha. How else would I eat it? The custard one had a very strong vanilla flavour which I really loved, I was so full by the end of our meal. We just stayed at the cafe for a little bit since it was still pouring outside.

The rain wasn't lightening up anytime soon, so we just decided to leave at about 4 and went down to the bakery to check out other flavours they had and also, take some more photos.

There were Chocolate Cream and Raspberry & Cream Cheese (in photo) flavours as well. I didn't manage to get good photos of the framed drawings on the wall. Some of the drawings were signed and drawn by Hayao Miyazaki himself, and there was a really cute Catbus clock hanging as well. They sold cookies too but it was all sold out by the time we got there. 

We spent some time taking a ton of photos and left when we were done. The rain was unforgiving as we walked to Shimokitazawa station. Initially, we planned to hang out around Shimokita but since it was more of an outdoor kind of thing, we decided to go to Tower Records in Shibuya to hide from the rain (also because I needed to charge my phone lol). We didn't do much for the rest of the day but check out some shops along Harajuku and migrated from place to place, talking too much.

We had dinner at the Madosh! Cafe because the last time I went I couldn't read the menu, was happy this time with all the avocado. I was so hungry yesterday because it's that time of the month and it was really cold. We shared an onsen egg and I had a tuna rice bowl, after that we moved to Starbucks (because me and my matcha tea latte) where I ate more, haha. Seriously.

We stayed out till 11pm and the rain finally stopped when we were going on home. -__- I'm really happy when I find new places to go, cafe hunting as I call it have been fun in Japan so far.