Sapporo Cafes: DxM

DxM is one of a chain of quite ridiculously stylish coffee shops in Sapporo run by Morihiko Coffee. These include the beautiful cafe converted from an old wooden house in Maruyama (which I cannot recommend highly enough, even if it is so small it's hard to get a seat a lot of the time) and Atelier Morihiko on the street-car line in West Odori, where I once had an almost transcendentally delicious pear tart. Seriously, I had no idea anything made with pears could be that good.

DxM's concept is to pair the same amazing coffee that Morihiko serve everywhere with luxurious doughnuts by  David (which is, I think, a bakery rather than just some dude named David). The coffee is wonderful and the doughnuts are really fancy, expensive doughnuts. And of course the interior is just excessively stylish, a minimalist collision of industrial trappings and an old school house. That makes it sound a little messy, it's not. The place is a gorgeous combination of metal and wood, and it's not until you look at the chain-link fence and industrial lights, then notice the blackboards and school desks that you realise they've gone for some crazy factory/school approach. But not scary and fascistic like Pink Floyd's The Wall. Y'know, the cool industrial schoolhouse approach.

If you like super-stylish, somewhat expensive coffee places then you have to pay the place a visit. I don't really have a whole lot more to add, except to reiterate that the coffee is really good (they roast their own coffee, and note the hourglass they gave me showing how long to let it brew before pouring it) and that the doughnuts really are fancy.

To be completely honest I don't need my doughnuts this fancy, and just nice hearty Mister Donut doughnuts are fine by me, but it was certainly no hardship at all to eat these ones.

It's pretty close to Sapporo Factory shopping mall and I would guess that the closest subway station would be Bus Centre Mae on the Tozai line. Perhaps a fifteen minute walk from Sapporo Station? Let's say so. I'll put it on my map, so go and try the place for yourself!

Sapporo Cafes - Kenon

A bit too far to be of use to most people, this one. Still, their bagels and donuts were just heavenly and if you live in the North of Sapporo, or better yet in Shin-Kotoni, then it's nice to know there are nice places around. Right?

Kenon is a stylish little place in a very suburban part of Northern Sapporo that clearly knows its target market is mums and housewives. They had mother's magazines and I'm pretty sure that they're a very 'baby friendly' place considering there were two very young babies while we were there. So it's not a hipster hang-out, but it is very minimal and chic, and really stands out in the area it's in.

It has a small cafe space attached, but I think that Kenon's main thing is baking bagels and donuts for take-out. And they're damn good bagels and donuts, let me tell you. We had chicken and salmon bagel sandwiches, amazing filled donuts and I got a herb sausage bagel to take away that turned out to be a bagel with a whole sausage running through it. It was all seriously good stuff and strongly recommended.

The coffee was good and the people were super friendly. As I said it's probably too far out for anyone to justify the trip out there, but if you're in the area it's great to know about. I've stuck it on my map... here.

Sapporo Cafes: Cafe Sahabi

Ugh, I thought I wasn't going to write this thing anymore! Look, the whole place is so dirty I'm going to have to clean everything up before I actually get back to blogging. Or I can just pile the lot in the sink I guess...

Well y'know, don't blog because you have to, blog because you want to. Words to that effect.

I stumbled over Cafe Sahabi randomly one time, and have dragged a few people there for the coffee, the amazing donuts and the atmosphere. Here are two of those people:


Ignore them. Pleasant though they may be to look at, the cafe is the point. It's a retro-styled cave of pop-culture ephemera with the standard manga library, several cabinets worth of characters and action figures, heaps of CDs and even an old NES you can play. It's a little tricky to find I guess. I've marked it on the map, but it's inside the building on the ground floor, not actually facing onto the street. There's a sign outside with a camel on though, it should be easy to spot and it's well worth the trip if you don't mind spending a little more for your coffee and actually enjoying the experience. It's pretty central too, just a couple of blocks off Eki-mae Dori next to Tanuki Koji

And they make fresh donuts, really fucking good fresh donuts. Donuts that make you think - mmmm, Mister Donut donuts are just donuts. These are Donuts. They're really good.


Matt got some kind of paprika based rice-bowl dish which he said was good but small (which is par for the course at this kind of place). I myself have only tried the donuts and can, as above, recommend them thoroughly. The drinks are served in "Fire-King" mugs, which I guess must be something of a big deal since it's mentioned on the menu. I'm not sure if it makes the coffee taste better, but it certainly helps you caffeinate in style:


Mmmm, retro-tastic. So, if yer in Odori and want a coffee that isn't from a chain (frankly it goes without saying that the coffee here, while not spectacular, is better than any chain I can think of... could have done with a little more though) I really recommend this place. We stumbled in there after wandering around the Snow Festival in a -10 blizzard and it was a little bit like heaven.

Mosdo - That's a bit more like it.

Still not got the Eurovision semi, but at least I should be able to stream it now - I'll check out how plausible that is later. In the mean time - junk food.

Last year Mos Burger (a damn fine Japanese burger chain with a shop next door to where I work) and Mister Donut (a fine Japanese donut emporium) collaborated on a spectacularly underwhelming "Mosdo" campaign. I filed it under "Missed Opportunities" since the collaboration included neither burger nor donut, and instead some sort of spicy chicken that they had "created together". Just thinking about that bullshit gets me pissed off all over again - what the hell is so hard about cutting a donut open and putting a burger in the middle?

Thankfully, this year they've taken a step in the right direction with two different kinds of Donut Burger:


Mos burger's eponymous Mos Burger, or their popular Teriyaki Burger, with a hole in the middle, and a surprise dollop of wasabi sauce (actually in this case horseradish) in the middle. I had one today and it was good, but it didn't expand my conciousness or anything. In the cosmology of awesome, it's still not very far into the heavens, but it's a start. And at least it has a connection to the two spheres of Burger and Donut. Mister Donut have topped it though:


Those are burgers and fries made entirely out of Donut products. Donut buns with chocolate cake for the burger and strawberry or matcha (green tea) flavoured sauce. I'll be checking them out too, don't you worry.

Still, c'mon. Plain ring donut, sliced in half horizontally with a beef patty in the middle. You know it makes sense.

Missied Opportunities #1: Mosdo

Collaborations. HOT. I was in a shop last week and I saw a pair of New Balance x Stussy x Real Mad Hectic sneakers with an Autumn theme... so hot they were almost on fire. They illuminated the store with flames of awesome, and of course this is Japan so they were two sizes too small, but still. HOT. Everyone loves an exciting collab, like when Eddie Van Halen played with Michael Jackson, or when Jimmy Page played with P. Diddy; but here's one to leave them all in the dust:


Mosdo. Mos Burger x Mister Donut. There's a Mos Burger 10 seconds from where I work and a Mister Donut about 2 minutes away, and I use both from time to time (Misudo usually for the coffee, which is pretty good if over-priced). They're both really pretty good at what they do for huge corporate chains, so let me tell you this was a team-up that really had me salivating. And what do the geniuses come up with? Hot chicken burger and hot chicken pie. Jesus, be still my pounding heart.

Let me tell you what I want: a honey glazed donut, split in half with a goddamn burger in the middle. Is that too much to ask? It's a burger chain collaborating with a donut chain, who bloody brought up the idea of chicken? I tell you, humanity has this... potential to be great, but it keeps squandering it like this. Look sharp humanity!