さらさ麩屋町Sarasa Fuyacho PAUSA

I don’t know if Laurel had had her eye on this café for a while, or have even been before, but one day in mid-April after an afternoon of café, a stroll and shopping, she suggested having dinner here.

Sarasa Fuyacho PAUSA is part of the さらさSarasa chain which started out as a renovated machiya cafe and now consists of six establishments, including a bakery (I’ve already posted about two of them and I’ve been to all but the bakery) on Fuyacho Street (across from the Sanjo よーじやカフェYojiya cafe). The open blue doors of the French-style establishment just catch one’s eye and seem to invite people in.

We were greeted heartily on entering and led up to the second-floor dining area (the first floor is where all the cooking is done). There were plenty of people, mostly a young crowd…I could see why it appealed to this age range: there were comics, magazines, CDs, videos, games, etc. all over the place,  so much to occupy those who visit to stay awhile.

The menu included a lot of fare that I felt would most likely be found in a restaurant rather than a café. After looking through the expansive menu, we decided to only have vegetable dishes (Laurel hadn’t really had vegetables that day and I had had a late lunch) and dessert and drink afterward.

Laurel was intrigued with the lemon beer on the menu, so she ordered one.

スモークサーモンとクリームチーズ＆自家製あつあつパリパリポテトチップスのサラダ”ミシガン”sumooku saamon to kuriimu chiizu to jikasei atsu-atsu pari-pari poteto chippusu “Mishigan” (“Michigan”, a smoked salmon & cream cheese salad with homemade hot and crispy potato chips), ￥840

salty cabbage stir fry

For dessert Laurel got the チョコレートケーキchokoleeto keeki (chocolate cake), ￥470.

I got the strawberry cheesecake.

We both got the (humongous♥) chai, ￥490.

If you couldn’t get how yummy that the dishes were by reading their names, then I will tell you now, they were ALL delicious. And sharing all that with a good friend made the experience even more tasty and memorable.☺

I found out sometime after this visit that Laurel’s cake is the same fabulous choco-chip & cream cheese cake that I had at さらさ西陣Sarasa Nishijin; since then I’ve been back twice to cure my craving at ￥500 to go.

Update: I went back half a year later to have that lovely chocolate cake to find it’s no longer available because the Sarasa pâtissière who made it went to the U.S. to study earlier this year…nooooooo!!! (I also said this to the male staff who tended to me☺) I hope I can find a close substitute!

Update: About a year and four months later, I dropped by to see if “my chocolate cake” was really back, and it sure was!☺ The male staff member who had informed me of the cake being no longer available rang me up, and he still remembered me (my shock before must have made a big impact, haha!)! I told him I’ll be coming more often.☺

I can’t believe I never took  a picture of the front before…

チョコチップとクリームチーズのケーキchoko-chippu to kuriimu-chiizu no kehki (chocolate-chip & cream-cheese cake), still the glorious price of ￥500

From what I could gather from the information that I was provided, the manager learned to bake the cake (maybe I’m not the only customer who was a fan of this cake), so I don’t think it’s the same pâtissière who made it before. Despite lacking a bit of moistness that the original one had (well, at least this time), it was the cake I knew.

06 Oct This entry was published on October 6, 2012 at 01:00. It’s filed under Café and tagged beer, Café, cafe SARASA, cake, chai, cheesecake, hitori kyoto, Kyoto, Laurel, salad, Sarasa Fuyacho PAUSA, Sarasa Nishijin, vegetables, Yojiya cafe. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.