Tea with the Moomins | Tokyo's Themed cafés

Japan. A country where amazing, quirky ideas become realities. Take the universe of the themed café for example. Tokyo is abounding with cafés themed around every possible interest. There's cat cafés, owl cafés, cafés that give you pastries in the shape of Totoro, cafés in which you can be served by butlers, animé themed cafés... The list goes on and on.

When searching around for our perfect café, we came across a concept café that we immediately fell in love with. The Moomin House Café.

Situated at the base of Tokyo Sky Tree (right next to the Sky Tree station) The Moomin House café is the perfect stop off point when you need a break from your vigorous schedule of touristing.

Just in case you have yet to encounter the joy that is the Moomins, let me give you a brief background. The Moomins are a series of books and comic strips written by the Finnish author Tove Jansson in the 1940s. With their large snouts and big eyes, they quickly became a huge international hit. To this day, their cute faces are popular all over Japan.

The Moomin House café gives you an amazing opportunity to step into the world of the Moomins. All over the shop are delicate little Moomin decorations, from the tiny Moomin spoons to the huge Moomin map. Things only get more exciting once you are seated at your table. Joining you to dine are enormous, life-size Moomin toys. There are several characters which they rotate round the tables every so often, so in the course of one meal you'll be joined by several members of the Moomin family.

Of course the food is also almost unbearably cute. We opted for for a fruit pudding that came with an adorable little cake in the shape of a Moomin. You could even keep the cup that the pudding came in as a souvenir. We also demolished a pancake stack, served next to the Moomin tower. Each level of the building contained a different dessert, including a creme brulee and sweet potato ice cream.

For drinks, you can get lattés decorated with the Moomin character of your choice. However, we recommend the Finnish blueberry coffee. It's delicious and unusual. If you particularly enjoy it, the coffee and several other knick-knacks are available from the adjoined Moomin shop.

Just as we were about to leave, a giant Moomin came out and we all played rock, paper, scissors together. We were extremely bemused but entertained. Long live quirky Tokyo and it's themed cafés!

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