I was pretty excited to visit the Hello Kitty Café in Hongdae because I grew up mildly addicted to Gift Gate stores and Sanrio shops in the malls. After seeing pictures from so many blogs, I longed to experience an afternoon leisurely drinking coffee amidst all that cuteness. I prepared myself to marvel at the explosion of Hello Kitty stuff much like a mini Sanrio-land (minus my Kerokero and Badtz Maru).
The problem with too much excitement is that I tend to overlook important details. Things like where exactly in Hongdae is the Hello Kitty Café? ㅋㅋㅋ I just knew that I had to find the Tony Moly shop and walk into that street. I guess I didn't realize there was a street to both the left and right of Tony Moly. So we got lost at first and ended up walking aimlessly for at least 30minutes. We found the Charlie Brown Café and I was tempted to just go into there but then there is already a Charlie Brown franchise in Singapore. We also came upon the Coffee Prince franchise store (not the original set of the drama) and I was once again drawn to stop there but then we suddenly saw the pink bow further down the inclined street. Hello Kitty!!!
So it was as cute and as pink in person as it is in the pictures. It's like a little princess doll house and I can't NOT imagine how girls can pass up a chance to at least take a selca with the café as background. The façade is really nice and I envision how refreshing it would be to sit on the veranda on warmer days. But it was late Autumn and our hands were freezing so we had to go in.
I thought the place would be full so we settled on the first set of available seats we found on the mezzanine. The lighting was pretty low though and so our pictures came out very yellowish without flash. Later on, we wondered if that area was meant for dates haha, since the other folks in our area seem to pair off. Anyway, I'll make sure to check out the 2nd floor next time.
They had a pretty extensive menu with many items UNavailable (boo) at that moment so it took us a while to decide on what to order. Here's what my friend got:
I wanted to get as much Hello Kitty in my food as possible so I got this cake with the Kitty cookie and DANHOBAK latte (sweet pumpkin latte).
I made 2 mistakes. 1st, I probably ordered a cake SET since the cake came with plain black coffee as well. So in the end I had 2 drinks. But I wasn't a plain coffee fan so I was fine with skipping this one and going for the danhobak latte. But here comes my 2nd mistake~ the danhobak latte tasted pretty bad for me :(. I didn't really know what I expected sweet pumpkin latte to taste and perhaps this is an acquired taste ... In the end, I wasn't able to drink more than 2 sips. Ironically, I had to drink water instead! The cake was ok though but nothing really special. The core was a mildly sweet choco mousse and that one is delish.
In any case, we didn't really come for the food. We went in to soak in all the Hello Kitty goodness of the place! And it didn't disappoint. Being in so much PINKness has such a strong psychological effect hahaha. I think it's supposed to make you relaxed and/or bring out the nurturing side of you. Plausible ~ and that's probably why I ended up paying for dinner for my younger friends later that night... 왕 언니 때문에 ^^.
For me, these are the best Hello Kitty things from the Hongdae café:
1. Hello Kitty sofa seats!
2. Hello Kitty mirror on the ladies restroom ㅋㅋㅋ
3. Hello Kitty streetlamp~
By the way, later on we figured out the very simple error which got us lost on the first place! If you're coming from the direction of the Hongdae subway stop (and most folks probably are), you should turn right AFTER Tony Moly and not before it ^^.
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