[Japan Trip] Alice in Fantasy Book + Kawaii Hoppe

I was only in Japan for Spring this year, but I couldn't resist the SGD600-ish return airfare by Delta Airline, so I jetted back there recently for Autumn in October.

 

During my April visit in Japan, I chanced upon these kawaii Japanese Characters at Harajuku.

 

 

 

Hoppe are cute little cream-like creatures from Japan, and I purchased some merchandise from the Hoppe retail store at Harajuku.

 

 

 

 

 During my recent trip, I picked up a lovely container to keep my last Hoppe purchases. I love the pretty lid that featured 2 Hoppe characters.

 

Apart from the container, I also got myself a Hoppe pendant, and it comes along with a silver chain.

 

My purchase amount entitled me for an in-house lucky draw, and I got myself a nice bangle. I love the attached Hoppe character very much. I will continue to add on to my collection whenever I visit Japan. 

 

This trip round, I visited a themed restaurant which is located at Shinjuku, and it was the popular Alice in the Wonderland Fantasy Restaurant and the theme for the Shinjuku outlet is 'Alice in Fantasy Book'.

 

The restaurant is about 5mins walk away from JR Shinjuku Station, and it is located at the basement, and therefore it makes it pretty difficult to find from the street level.

 

We took the lift to the basement, and when the door open, a waitress who was dressed like 'Alice' took us through a large door which resembled a giant story-book into the dining area.

 

 We were pretty lucky to get a table as we didn't make any reservation in advance. We waited around 10 minutes though for the seat allocation.

 

 

The setting was pretty dim but looked magical, and the whole dining premises was crowded with diners. There is a big chandelier on the ceiling and some illustrations on the wall.  

 

There is a 500Yen cover charge per person, 10% service charge on the bill and each person MUST ORDER a food item and a drink. What a hefty meal rule!

 

We ordered some nacho chips to start off our dining at 'Alice in Fantasy Book'.

 

We had the White Rabbit's Brulee with Backwards Clock Macaron, and it was beautifully decorated. The dessert was a nice surprise to end our dining experience. The crème brulee was smooth with a thin crackly top and the macaron tasted good too.

 

Although the Alice themed restaurant is alluring and charming, but my whole dining experience was quite disappointed as the taste of the food is not worth for the amount of money I spent on it! The dining rules made the meal pricey and it served better visuals rather than an actual experience!

 

 

I don’t think I will return but being a Alice in Wonderland die-hard fan, I hope to see some positive changes, as I might be visiting the other themes of Alice in the Wonderland Fantasy Restaurant.

 

FYI, there are a total of 5 themes for Alice in the Wonderland Fantasy Restaurant, and the variations of the themes are Alice in Old Castle / Alice in Labyrinth / Alice in Dancing Land /Alice in Fantasy Land / Alice in Fantasy Book

The damage was around SGD40+ and it was pretty pricey as we were only having desserts. When we were done with our dining, the staff lead us out of the dining premises and to the lift, she gave us two packets of Alice’s Strawberry Tea as a token of appreciation!