Kamen Rider: The Diner

I can't go a week at the job without a 4 year old boy yelling at me to "look, look" at their gimmicky toy belt buckle thing with all the stupid buttons and useless lights. Given that they're 4 year old kids, I can forgive them for that toy being the best thing in their life. But it's practically always the same one. Unless it's a train. God damn they love their trains.

Shielded from children's grubby hands.

 So I guess that's the relationship I hold with "Kamen Rider." If you've never heard of that television series, I can forgive you too.
 Kamen Rider is basically Power Rangers or Ultraman with different costumes. It's got a bit of a rock n' roll twist to it in that the titular characters ride motorcycles or something. But you get the idea, masked heroes beating up bad guys with lots of CGI explosions and green screen. Yes, that's still all the rage with the kids in Japan. But Kamen Rider spawned 24 series throughout the course of 40 years, so I guess there's something to be said about that.

It's influenced Japanese boys' television programming so much that there are countless lines of the aforementioned toys, plus a Kamen Rider themed all-girl pop singer group, and, of course, a themed restaurant.

Well the rest of that stuff is all good, but I just wanted to see what the restaurant was like. So I did! Enter Sean and Ken in the land of pre-grade school kids, quietly suffering parents, and the eternal virgins.



Kamen Rider: the Diner is appropriately decked out with toys, life-sized models, television screens showing trailers, and its own gift shop at the entrance. The presentation is pretty representative of the series, I guess, with no shortage of flashy gadget light-up things without much standing around all over the place, but that's not a bad thing at all, and comes as expected. With all its displays, the place reminded me a lot more of the Gundam Front than it did of other themed restaurants.
 But they have a really cool chair at the back of the establishment! With the lighting and whatnot, it's well rigged for a Bond villain picture. So yay for that.
 Food-wise, the dishes are all made to look like the masks of the Kamen Rider characters, which begs the question - how much thought went into the actual taste of the food if they were so intent on making everything look such a specific way? I can't say I really cared to find out. All the items, however, are shown in very good detail in the colorful menus, so one can get a pretty good look of what the place has to offer. They even have alcoholic beverages for parents wanting to drown away the sorrow of being dragged into the place!

This makes us Kamen Riders too or something.

Actually, Ken and I ordered the parfaits, which also are made to look like the characters' faces. Those were alright. But the weird thing is that the waiter made us throw our arms up and say some Kamen Rider thing so that we would get our dessert. I've only ever seen that being done in maid cafes before, and this isn't really one. So that was a little awkward. You'd think that would be a deterrent to other customers from getting desserts at this place. Even the waiter didn't seem to have put his heart into it! Hell, I like to think that it's just something he randomly decided to make us do for kicks.

 Anyway! Kamen Rider: the Diner! Passable food, gimmicky toys, half-hearted waiters and a cool chair!