Kingdom Hearts is, to this day, probably one of Disney’s strangest crossover efforts. And with the release of the latest installment in the series, Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, in November, naturally a special cafe themed to the game opened in Tokyo’s fashionable Shibuya area. So we decided to venture out there and give everything a taste!
Entry
The cafe is housed within the Shibuya Box Cafe & Space area for pop-up cafes, located on the second floor of this Loft home goods store in Shibuya’s Udagawacho area.
Upon entering the building, artwork and wall decals cover the staircase to the second floor.
The wall of the cafe also features artwork with characters from Kingdom Hearts.
And of course, the sign lets us know we’re in the right place!
Guests are asked to sanitize their hands and wear masks when they visit the Shibuya Box Cafe & Space, but that’s nowhere near unusual these days.
And of course, you can;’tm iss these huge murals near the entrance.
If you made a reservation as we did, you get to place your hand in to the right raffle box for a special prize. And if you order a drink, you can grab a coaster from the left box. Visitors are asked to sanitize their hands immediately before this.
Menu
The menu cover features screenshots from the game itself!
The fun thing about themed cafes in Japan is how creative they get with food and drink items. There’s always a couple wacky items as well!
In an effort to both expedite the process and prevent infection by keeping waitstaff away from visitors as much as possible, orders are taken before visitors are seated, with the diner writing the quantity of what they want, as we did.
Dining Area
Once we were seated, we found that the tables had a neat decal featuring iconography from the game on it!
Tables are laid out in two-seat configurations, with barriers between both other tables and the other diners in the party.
Around the cafe, projected video screens played clips from the new Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory game. But enough about that, let’s get to the actual food and drink!
Drinks
Mickey, Donald, & Goofy Strawberry Friendship Tea – ¥899 ($8.69)
We chose to start our meal off with two drinks (which came out remarkably quickly). The first was the Mickey, Donald, and Goofy Strawberry Friendship Tea, which came in this tall glass and featured a neat ombre effect.
The straw was topped with this attachment featuring the three friends as they appear in the games.
The ice to drink proportion was a bit more unbalanced than I would’ve preferred. But at least it looked cool!
Unfortunately, stirring it all together gave it a rather unpleasant-looking sickly green tint. Perhaps that’s what caused the tea to lose all semblance of a strawberry flavor. In fact, it tasted quite a bit like watered down medicine and left a highly unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone for any reason whatsoever.
Roxas, Xion, and Axel Sea Salt Ice Milk – ¥1199 ($11.58)
If you’re confused about how this works, so was I. As it turns out, the bottle of milk on the left is hot, and the idea is that you pour it over the sea salt-flavored popsicle to make it melt into the drink, and stir the rest of the popsicle in to make the rest melt.
The bottle features a label with Axel and Xion on the front.
This is how the finished product turns out, with the milk cooling rather quickly once mixed in with the popsicle. Bright side—the rest of the popsicle made for a great dessert!
It’s certainly a novel idea, and one that I applaud them for trying. The popsicle itself had a light salt flavor, erring more towards sweet than unpleasant. That being said, the milk seems to pick up very little of the salt flavor and rather resembles the flavor of cheese tea once you drink. I enjoyed it, but this sort of thing probably wouldn’t be for everyone given how polarizing cheese tea can be.
Food
King Mickey’s Tuna Sandwich – ¥1399 ($13.52)
It’s time for the main course, and we chose the King Mickey’s Tuna Sandwich! The sandwich comes on a plate with music notes as well as a small side of yogurt and fruit, and an orange slice garnish.
The sandwich itself comes with a Mickey silhouette burned on top, along with a King Mickey toothpick holding a keyblade.
Inside the sandwich are cherry tomato slices, tuna, onions, and a whole lot of lettuce. Overuse of lettuce is always one of the least appealing things a restaurant can do in my eyes.
The sandwich was quite a tiny portion for costing nearly $14, but the point of a cafe is more to be Instagrammable than to be a good taste or value for the cost. While the tuna tasted excellent and the lettuce was crisp, it certainly felt like there wasn’t nearly enough tuna to really call this a tuna sandwich. It was more like a lettuce sandwich that also had a bit of tuna on top.
I did love the Mickey toothpick holding a keyblade, though! That was a nice touch.
I won’t lie, I was expecting this to be panna cotta and was severely disappointed when I realized it was only yogurt. On the bright side, the cranberries, blueberries, and strawberry chunks that were on top were all juicy and fresh, and mixed in well with the rest of the yogurt.
Extras
As I mentioned earlier, because we ordered a drink, we also got to grab coasters out of the box. Since I ordered two drinks, I grabbed two of these special coasters exclusive to the cafe!
The second raffle also entitled us to this special mask case!
Guests visiting are also given this card, which allows them to get a free coaster if they visit another Kingdom Hearts cafe between January 28th and March 12th.
Merchandise
Plenty of merchandise is also on sale featuring Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and other characters and items from the Kingdom Hearts series.
There was such a variety of merchandise related to both Melody of Memory and the series itself, it would take quite a while to itemize everything!
But it’s certainly safe to say that if you enjoy Kingdom Hearts and you’re looking for merchandise to commemorate it, you’ll find something to love in the cafe’s shop area!
There’s even can badge buttons, pins, keychains, and stickers featuring various characters and locales from the series!
All in all, despite the appealing appearances and neat merchandise, the Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory Cafe leaves quite a bit to be desired, both in food quality and certainly in pricing. Nearly $14 for a tuna sandwich with hardly any tuna on it just isn’t a good deal in any sense. Your hard-earned dollars (or yen, in this case) are better spent elsewhere.
Would you like to visit the Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory Cafe in Tokyo? Have you been already? Be sure to let us know in the comments below! And stay tuned to WDWNT for the latest Disney news from around the world!
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