THE VERDICT
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Setting & Atmosphere
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Food
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Service
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Value For Money
OVERALL SUMMARY
No crazy food gimmicks. Simple and delicious!
A popular Kinfolkesque brunch joint without the upscale price tag. Sunday Brunch’s Shimokitazawa location proudly shows off its good quality ingredients and variety-on-a-plate concept. Could this be the best value for money brunch you have ever eaten in Tokyo?
SETTING AND ATMOSPHERE
mixture of quiet afternoons, Scandinavian simple finishes, and slow living element vibes Sunday Brunch’s Shimokitazawa cafe offers a stylish and cozy dining experience in the “zakka” aesthetic. With the space’s high ceiling and skylight openings in hipster-loving triangle cutouts, one can enjoy the atmosphere of a relaxed Sunday morning every day of the week.
It’s spacious and well fitted with many seating options suitable for big groups to
single-window dining and comes with fun features like the self-serve fruit infused water station, sweets corner, and even a lifestyle home goods store.
Since it is one of the more popular eating spots in the area, the best time to visit is to avoid the busy weekend lunch rush which peaks around 12PM – 1PM and opt for either an early-late lunch or early tea time to ensure you can enjoy it at your own pace with a good book or some work-time on your laptop.
Food
he first thing you will notice when glancing through Sunday Brunch’s menu is how gorgeous the food looks. Everything here from the plates of pasta to the generous cake slices is just as pretty as the pictures – well-balanced plates with lots of colour and variety.
The main dishes are simple brunch ideas of mixed plate combinations such as doria (a baked rice dish) with pasta, french toast with a side dish as well as curry butter chicken and they are all filling and satisfying. Vegetable produce seems to be the highlight of each dish as they generously decorate every dish with seasonal vegetables to liven up the dish’s presentation for that “wow” effect.
The first dish was a classic Japanese dish found in many cafes here: the omurice plate with a twist. Unlike the common brown demi-glaze sauce you see on most menus, this one was served with a generous helping of herb cream sauce adding a nice mild creaminess to the tomato rice mixture hidden beneath the egg. The egg omelette was nicely set with that gooey but not overly runny texture should you be the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy that texture feeling. Overall, it was a delight to eat if you feel like indulging especially on a chilly day.
Next was the double carb pasta and doria set: a creamy chicken vegetable cheese rice bake with a simple cured ham herb pasta. It was a combination hard to fault
because of its simplicity as all the flavours go well together. Best of all, the accompanying pasta rotates seasonally for more flavour combinations though the doria generally stays the same.
Moving on to dessert, although their stacked pancakes are a show stopper on their own, for a person who had only a little stomach room to spare their window cake selection was hard to beat with delicately decorated treats layered with fresh fruit and cream.
Before the season ends, we decided on the Mont Blanc with Seasonal Fruits Cake which had a nice height of light and airy cream and chestnut puree with a centre of fresh cream and some fruit pieces running through it.
To level up your already Instagram-worthy snack time, I highly recommend to skip the drink set menu and order their Uji Matcha Milk Tea for its decent size and good tea flavour. Using Uji’s famous matcha, the drink was nice without the addition of sugar to savour the slight bitterness of the tea powder’s taste. The cotton candy coloured rice puffs on the top was purely for decoration and fun but was a unique presentation that feels like you’re enjoying some sweets from a traditional Japanese sweets store.
Rice Plate – prawn omurice with a herb cream sauce and garden salad | 1380 yen
Doria and Pasta Plate – a creamy cheese rice bake with a simple cured ham herb pasta and garden salad | 1280 yen
Mont Blanc with Seasonal Fruits Cake | 680 yen
Uji Matcha Milk Tea | 650 yen
SERVICE
or all the times I visited Sunday Brunch, they all seem to fall on a weekday and the service is always very polite with a little local friendliness lent from the area. The staff is very responsive and the food arrives in a very orderly fashion.
The menu is bilingual with Japanese and English descriptions so ordering is a breeze and also some staff can speak a little basic English. The staff will also ask you about any food allergies during ordering which is a nice touch.
VALUE FOR MONEY
ith the cheapest dish being 1150 yen that also includes a salad and the cheapest dessert being around 500 yen, the price is quite average for the area. The best value definitely comes from ordering in sets.
The brunch set meal which includes a mini salad, pasta of the day, cake dessert, and a drink at 1650 yen is a cheaper choice if you want to experience everything there is to offer and expect to pay for a cake and drink set 1050 yen.
