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Mr Sato goes head-to-head with a giant cream soda parfait in a Tokyo cafe

Oona McGee Aug 16, 2021
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Enormous dessert’s clown-like face belies the monstrosity that lies within.

Our food-loving Japanese-language reporter Mr Sato has eaten his way through his fair share of giant desserts in Japan, but none has frightened him more than the Cream Soda Parfait at Kissaten OB.

In Japan, “kissaten” are old-fashioned coffee houses offering retro meals and ambience, with dark wood features and jazz music transporting customers back to their Showa era (1926-89) heyday, when the country was quickly becoming more international.

Kissaten OB has all that in spades, but what drew Mr Sato to the retro coffeehouse was their special cream soda parfait, which has become a hit for combining ’50s soda bar style with some very colourful ’80s kawaii flair.

▼ A retro dessert of gigantic proportions.

As soon as Mr Sato laid eyes on the dessert, he cowered in fear, not only at the giant size of the serving, which was about three times taller than his 13.8-centimetre (5.4inch) iPhone SE2, but at the face that stared at him from the top of it all.

The raisin eyes of the parfait stared deep into his soul, quietly judging him as if to see whether he would be able to devour its cuteness, head and all. The cone-hatted clown-like character came with all sorts of colourful accoutrements, including a Pocky stick, ice cream, fruit, and whipped cream, and beneath it all was an even thicker mound of whipped cream.

▼ Beneath that was a jug containing about a litre (33.8 ounces) of melon soda.

If the face on top of this dessert was a clown, everything beneath it was its crazy circus, and Mr Sato wasn’t sure if his stomach could handle the acrobatics required to join the show.

Still, he’d come this far, and Mr Sato has never been one to listen to common sense, so he started at the big top, attempting to pull the clown’s head from the dessert so he could at least get this done without those big brown eyes staring at him.

Well, that didn’t go as smoothly as he expected, so he picked up a spoon and scooped the head into the cone, adding some of the cream and fruit for a very decadent ice cream cone.

After polishing off the ice cream, it was time to get stuck into the rest of the dessert, even though he could already feel the clown head rolling around inside of him. Using the long spork provided, Mr Sato enjoyed the fresh respite of banana and pineapple, before making his way to the cream layer in the neck of the bottle.

▼ Once this bottleneck cleared, Mr Sato would be on the home stretch.

Sensing the finish line ahead, our tireless reporter picked up what he thought were two straws — one pink and one yellow — only to find that the pink one was actually a super long spoon.

This was actually pretty handy, as some of the fruit had sunk beneath the cream, so he fished a few pieces out, covering them with cream at the same time, and then he started slurping on the yellow straw.

▼ He took a few big gulps, but when he sat back to see how much was left, it hardly looked like any of the liquid had gone at all.

The soda was so bubbly it was hard to drink quickly, so Mr Sato had to pace himself as he made his way through the drink, all the time fighting to keep visions of the clown laughing inside him at bay.

There was a lot of green liquid to get through, but after about 30 minutes of fighting…our valiant Mr Sato finally finished the dessert! And as he wiped his chin and let out a melon-scented burp he swore he would never drink cream soda ever again.

The Cream Soda Parfait is priced at 990 yen (US$8.97), which is actually a pretty good deal for its size, and there are also some slightly smaller options, containing chocolate or matcha, for 880 yen.

Looking at the menu, Mr Sato was pleasantly surprised to see the gigantic Iced Tea was still on offer, which brought back memories of the last time he was here, slurping tea out of a glass that looked more like a giant fishbowl.

Mr Sato might be older now than he was back then, but he’s certainly no wiser, given that he’s still challenging his stomach to feats of strength like these. At least now he’s learnt to offset all those carbs with frequent bouts of pole dancing!

Cafe information
Kissaten OB (Hokima branch) / 珈琲屋OB（保木間店）
Address: Tokyo-to, Adachi-ku, Nishihokima 2-9-12
東京都足立区西保木間2-9-12
Open: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. (last order 7:30 p.m.)

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