Although Cafe Mame-Hico boasts delicious food and coffee, it offers much, much more. Mame-Hico is not your ordinary cafe. It has a farm in Hokkaido, an Internet radio program, a free magazine, and to top them all, its very own movie production.
"Mame" means "bean" in Japanese, and true to its name, Mame-Hico prizes itself on its beans: coffee beans, organic soybeans, black beans, red beans, and so on. Many of the products used in the food are made in the Mame-Hico farm in Hokkaido, where employees of the Tokyo Mame-hico cafes work during the summer. Ever conscious of the ecosystem, Mame-Hico's specialty galettes and many other plates use special Japanese beans that are on the verge of extinction.
Cafe Mame-hico prizes itself on seasonal menus: pickled plum in early summer, baked apples in the autumn, lemon cake in the winter. The writer's personal favorite is the early summer special: a pink-purple hydrangea cake that matches the gorgeous hydrangeas lining the railroad tracks of Sangenjaya.
If you ever visit Cafe Mame-Hico in Sangenjaya, be sure to walk a block to Gotokuji, the birthplace of the maneki-neko cat. It's a sight you don't want to miss!