Welcome to @Home Cafe

I keep forgetting to post up some pictures from our trip to Japan, so here's another episode of our trip! On our designated lolita day, we set out to go to a maid cafe, specifically @Home Cafe Donki in Akihabara. There are two locations of @Home in Akiba, Donki signifies the one located in the Donquijote building (yes, I realized it's spelled funny). This one had a dining/living room, basically a seating area that the other locating didn't have.

Keiko and I waiting to be seated, @Home Cafe. Pic Credit: Bosu

It's better to go to a maid cafe with someone who speaks some Japanese. Although most cafes will have an English speaking maid, I think the experience isn't as genuine since it's a bit mistranslated. If you understand Maid Cafe culture, it's more cute and endearing. Being a maid at our annual charity maid cafe at Anime North, I've been infused with knowledge of this culture, (whether I liked it or not :P )

They do have an English menu, which helps, and they let you look at that while you are waiting to be seated. We had 5 people in our party, and only waited about 5-10 minutes at around 3pm that day.

The maids were very cute and were surprised that we all showed up in lolita!

My sister's Halloween dessert. That pumpkin was super cute!

Since it was a week and a half before Halloween, they had started to promote their Halloween special, which was a dessert (pictured above) and they had a card that went with it. If I recall, if you had the dessert 8 times, you could redeem the card to get a special picture with the maids or play a special game with them. The dessert was cubes of shortcake, drizzled with chocolate sause and orange syrup, with taro ice cream and strawberries and whip cream on top. The little cream puff pastry was decorated like a jack-o-lantern. It's looked really cute but my sister said it was a lot of weird flavors all in one. The dessert was 500 or 600yen, and it came with a cute sticker.

Interior of @Home Cafe. Pic Credit: Bosu

You're not supposed to take pictures inside the cafe, but we took a few anyways. Shh!

The way maid cafes work in Japan is that you pay an 'entrance sitting' fee and then you pay for your addition food items on top of that. The sitting fee for @Home is 700 yen. Drinks vary from 500-700 yen each and food is around 1200-1700 yen (I think, I don't recall exactly). There are different combo sets that usually work out to be a good deal, as they include a drink, food dish, and either a picture of you with your maid or some 'moe' candies. 

We ate before we went...so we all ended up ordering drinks or a dessert. Maid cafés aren't known for their food, it's more for the experience. When they give you the drinks, it's very cute. They have you send love to the drink/food before you eat. We were served by at least 4 different maids and they talked to us and asked us where we were from. Each maid has their own theme to make them unique, one girl was accessorized with Pikachu accessories!

My Polaroid and my Mistress card from @Home Cafe.

 We chose the option to take a Polaroid  with the maid of our choice. Since we couldn't read their names, they brought over a clip board with pictures of each of the girls and we pointed to who we liked. My maid started talking to me about lolita and whether I wore it at home, and with my horrible Japanese I manage to convey that I wore it sometimes. You're allowed to choose an item to take a picture with from a wall of plush toys and accessories. I picked the alpaca, because it's Awesome!

To take a picture with a maid is 500 yen.

When you go to @Home, you're presented with a Master card, every time you go visit their cafe, you slowly power up. Once you level up, you get a different card. The one I have is considered Bronze. The next table over, one of the guys had a Black one! I wonder how many times he went to get that one.../(>__<;)\*

The message Keiko and I left for the maid of @Home Cafe. Pic Credit: Bosu

One of the maids came around with a notebook and asked us to leave a 'memory' in it. Becca wrote an entry and then Keiko started writing hers. I just finished it up with a sentence in English and then drew a picture of us in our outfits so they could remember us ♥ 

Moe hand wipes and chopsticks.

 Before we left, they presented each of us with 'moe' chopsticks. It was really cute, except they're just take out chop sticks.. (^__^;;)* When I was packing to leave Japan I somehow ended up with all the wipes and chopsticks...

Each seating is about an 1 - 1.5 hours long, where you'll be served with your drinks / food, everyone in the room will play a game against the maids on duty, take your polaroids and have some conversation with your maids. We didn't opt to play the game because if you win you have to go up on their small stage and they talk to you in Japanese and you have to respond. I was also busy finishing up the drawing in the notebook. 

Overall, the experience was really fun. It's a shame none of us did the special drinks or food because I have heard that the presentation is super cute and over the top! I'm not particularly fond of the sitting fee because it add ups to your total. I only had a drink and took a polaroid with my maid and it cost me 1700 yen. 

I think I would go again for fun with some friends if the chance popped up though! 

So, see you soon @Home? ♥