Komeda Coffee "Shiro Noir" / コメダ珈琲店 シロノワール

Komeda Coffee's Shiro Noir / コメダ珈琲店 シロノワール

Komeda Coffee Co., Ltd. is a Nagoya city based company which has coffee shop chain called "Komeda Coffee Shop(コメダ珈琲店)," sweets cafe called "Okage-an(甘味喫茶・おかげ庵)," and high-class tea place called "Kiccha(吉茶)."

This coffee shop started as a private management tea shop in Nagoya city in January, 1968.

Mr. Kato was the owner of the shop and he's also a founder of Komeda Coffee, which is named after his family business.

His family was a rice dealer (米屋), and rice in Japanese is "Kome" thus Komeda became the official name for the chain.

A friend of mine said Komeda Coffee provides pretty good foods including its famous Shiro Noir.

So I searched Komeda Coffee's branch and found one nearby, however, most of them are located in somewhere a little bit far from the center of cities.

Shiro Noir is a coined word of Shiro (means white in Japanese) and Noir (means black in French).

And here's the description of the menu.

Warm and sweet danish bread on the bottom and soft cream (ice cream) on the top with cherry, served with a little jar of maple syrup to add if you'd like.

This can be a light meal and also dessert, which one of the most popular specialties of Komeda Coffee.

Shiro Noir was a created term from the completely opposite aspects; warm (danish bread) and cold (ice cream) besides the color, black and white.

On the menu above says, before 11AM, it's "morning service time" and if you order any kind of drink, you get toast and warm boiled egg for free.

I simply wonder if they earn enough profit by doing this.

When we got to Shin-Okubo branch around 3PM or later, it was really busy and 4-5 groups were before us on the waiting list.

We waited for about 20 minutes and we luckily could get non-smoking area.

When we seated, I found a plug right next to the table and the note says we could use it freely.

A waitress brought us warm hand towel and water, which have Komeda Coffee logo.

I ordered Shiro Noir (regular size) and mix juice, my fiance ordered fish sandwich, salad, and coke.

Soon our drinks came and I realized every thing has Komeda logo on it, like coaster, bottle, and straw package, too.

This is my mix juice.

Mix juice is made with apple, orange, bananas, and other fruits mixed with milk.

This drink became famous in Japan when juicers and mixers 1970s.

When soft drinks started taking over the drink market, mix juice started dying. 

Meanwhile, in Kinki area (Kansai area, like Osaka), mix juice is still a regular product in tea shops and loved by many customers.

A fried of mine is from Osaka and he said to find mix juice in Tokyo was hard, also he got surprised when he learned this drink isn't famous outside of Kansai area.

This mix juice jar was quite big.

With iPhone5, you can see the bottle (including red cap) is taller than the phone.

Once opened the cap, I could smell sweet flavor and found a lot of ice in the jar.

Thought it contained a lot of ice, it was as sweet as I expected so that I left a little bit.

My Shiro Noir came!

I poured all the maple syrup over it.

Danish bread soaked in ice cream and maple syrup.

The bread was soft, warm, sweet and light.

Ice cream was really cold and I even started shivering while eating this.

Maple syrup added different sweetness from the ice cream on the top to the danish bread.

I wish they had some other flavor syrup besides maple, for example chocolate, honey, caramel, etc.

It was a large piece and I'm glad I didn't order anything beforehand otherwise it was too much to me to eat all.

If I go back there and try some real food, I'd order mini Shiro Noir instead of full-sized one.

Shiro Noir: 590 JPY

Mix juice: 500 JPY

The one we went to is located on the 2nd floor in Don Quijote, Shinjuku branch.

*Even though it's called Shinjuku branch, it's located in Okubo, not Kabukicho.

It was hard to find, so the easiest way is to ask employees in Don Quijote and they will explain how to get there.

(Simply, you need to follow a blue line inside of Don Quijote and go up to the 2nd floor.)

Komeda Coffee Shop (Don Quijote Shinjuku branch)

コメダ珈琲店(ドン・キホーテ新宿店)

2F, Don Quijote Shinjuku,

1-12-6, Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

東京都新宿区大久保1-12-6　ドン・キホーテ新宿2階

Open every day

無休

Hour: 7:00AM - 11:00PM

営業時間:7:00 - 23:00