Sapporo Cafes: YS↑O2

Just a quick post for this place. It's nothing astonishing or revolutionary, but it deserves a mention as a nice little cafe/restaurant in the centre of Sapporo. Probably the most interesting thing about it is that arrow in the middle of the name though. I was intrigued as to how that might be pronounced - I've seen a few places in Japan that mash up English and Japanese phonics so that what looks like a nonsense jumble becomes a readable word when it's  explained. But when I asked the lady, she looked at me kind of blankly and said "YSO2" so there you go. Not even an upwardly inclined raising of tone.

YS02 is in the basement of the Minami Ichi-jo K Building right in the middle of Odori. In fact it's right next to the soup curry shop Hiri Hiri that I posted about before. It's a simple, cleanly designed cafe that serves light lunches, simple meals and nice coffee and, not meaning to stereotype, but I would guess that it's popular with women who work in the city centre at lunch time. A bunch of people came and went while we were in there, but I was the only guy and the menu wasn't really offering the sort of hearty, manly fare that pulls in the XY crowd. For an example of the opposite please see the gyoza chain Miyoshino. The only time I've ever seen a woman in the city centre branches of Miyoshino is when my girlfriend was in there, and she spent the whole time talking about how it looked like only single men ate there. Young student-looking dudes kept walking in and ordering twenty gyoza with curry sauce and extra rice.

Anyway, I certainly don't need to be eating a whole flash-fried cow every day so I'm down with having healthier options. I went for taco rice (one of those dishes that Japanese people assume is foreign even though it doesn't exist outside Japan) and it was really nice. This was on the lunch set menu, but I think they have a lot more interesting looking dishes on the main menu.

The coffee was good too, which is important. It's good to know nice relaxing places to go for lunch downtown so consider this marked on the map (it is), and go take a look!