# 溜池山王駅 喫茶店 シーザー

## Concept

That's my favorite place. But it does not exist anymore.
Follow me!

## Kissaten

So you may know that but the kissaten is a Japanese old-fashioned coffee house. Which is bullshit, honestly. For an American it would be more like a roadside diner back in the day. You know, the place you will obviously have bottomless dubious coffee, French fries, apple pie!, pancakes, Uncle Bob reading the news, the guy chain smoking in the back? That's my place! It is not traditional. In fact it is called "western-style food", like curry and fish eggs. It's old. The place is not retro, it does not have an opinion, it just does what it was supposed to do and never stopped.

## My place

Every story has a start.
![Entrance](caesar/entrance.jpg)

So it starts like that, the thing is a basement, and there is basically nothing around. It's always full of people who know the place, but it is like they are the only one to know the place. Ask anyone around, nobody has ever heard about it.

But Japanese people have this thing... You know when we catch something with a word like food and a verb like eat, and it feels simple. But it isn't. There is the pleasure of eating, of course, but also of testing a place you heard about, go somewhere trendy, eat above your pay-grade, you know. And in Japan, finding the secret little decayed and cheap spot is a real sport. Now, like any sport, it is not as if everyone was playing it. But it's big enough to have massive websites with very peculiar evaluations, extreme severity. And a colleague to come with a "I know a place for today!".

So that's cool. I don't practice this sport, myself, but I offer support.

## Entry

The photo won't do it justice.

![Inside](caesar/inside.jpg)

So imagine the place, very little light, the wall and ceiling black, entirely filled with smoke. And the Beatles. Always the Beatles, for years, the Blue Album. While my guitar...

As you enter, you can see the biggest phone you have ever seen in your life. The black phone, 黒電話. I mean the thing still was on an analog line 60 years after it had been plugged there. It is rare enough for people at work circulating the video of a TV program where they come to see the phone.

The air conditioners are made in wood. Let that sink. Not like cute wood, more like "did you know that wood was cheaper than plastic in 1960?".

![Phone](caesar/phone.jpg)

And so before we sit there, let me tell you why this place is special. The owner. In Japan we call elder not differently than family. So for us, she is Obāsan or Grandma. And Grandma is grumpy as fuck. So for a start she always has something to say to half the population, the women. Except those working there. Don't ask, I don't know. And the others... well, she also has something to say, but less so.

So when you enter the place she looks at the group. It is like the security at a club. She accepts the group. She may not, but it never happened.

And they had the best curry I have ever eaten in my life. The thing is legendary. You have videos of people trying it. It is black curry. Like the wall. Like the phone. The legend says it was made in 1963 when the place was built. Which makes sense because I don't think they changed a thing.

![Curry](caesar/curry.jpg)

The proportions were absurd. It was almost unfinishable. You'd get hammered for the afternoon. One person found the trick: asking for a smaller portion.

She did not like that, Grandma. She would look at the person. A bit disgusted. A small portion? Yes, please. Disbelief. The client is a diva.

She liked me. I was the foreigner, but still. Well everyone likes me. But every time, Every time! When I order she would say: curry, again? You know it is not good to eat too much of that...

What the fuck Grandma? You have been doing that curry for 40 years, I came for that, it is the biggest picture on the menu? But Grandma was like that. She had things to say.

And that was really cool, after that you'd just relax on the old seat... One person in the group had worked at Sega. Another had developed Neo Geo games. We were coding games. We'd smoke there, drinking a mediocre coffee or ice tea.

We have never been sure exactly of what that curry was. It was Japanese curry, but the taste was a bit bitter, and a bit sweet. Some said it was coffee. Maybe roasted roux. I have read that chocolate may be added. One possibility is also squid ink. What was that region they use that a lot? Can't remember.

## Exit

That was really a cool place. As Grandma is at that point virtually immortal, it could have gone for a long time. But an idiot decided to rebuild the basement.

That's the thing, you can't build a 60 years old place overnight. But you can sure decide it's over with little delay. Even Grandma, she was 80 years in the making.

Even if it is not true at an atomic level, I think that the Universe is different now.

Anyway, that was my cool place from a few years ago.