Maid Cafe in Akihabara

7 May 2015

Even though I’ve been in Japan for dunno how many donkey years, I’ve never been to a maid cafe before! (I’ve been to a butler cafe though! Story for another time ;D )

I decided it’s time to rectify that, so when my friend Eric was planning his first visit to Japan, I suggested for him to visit a maid cafe. When he ignored my question and talked about other things, I suggested it to him again. And again and again.

What? Maid cafes are a very Japanese experience and I don’t want him to miss out! I’m nice like that. (stop smirking over there, Eric.)

He caved, and we headed to… where else? Akihabara!

I googled online and @home cafe (pronounced “at home cafe”) was highly ranked and established, so there we went!

There are many branches, and we went to the one nestled inside Don Quixote (called “donki” for short). The reason is not because I read the maids there are super cute or something, but simply because I knew where Donki was. Lol.

We arrived, and the first picture I took was the epitome of ultimatespyfail T_T

As you can see, I took a photo of the “No photos” sign AND at the precise moment the manager walked out and was looking straight at me. FML.

He told me photos are not allowed and I sheepishly bowed and apologised. But he wasn’t really angry, more like doing it out of reflex. I think he probably says that 38279 times a day to people trying to, or rather, failing to sneak a shot lol.

Basically, it costs 600 yen + whatever you order.

Eric and I both ordered the Drink Set, so we can take a photo with a maid! But you can also order ala carte items. C, who was with us just ordered a drink without any set.

TIP: If you order their house specials, the drink comes with a special chant, and the maid will chant some nonsensical words complete with nonsensical actions. The fun part? YOU have to echo her! Hilarious, and definitely memorable!

Our drinks arrived and the maid who served us asked what picture I wanted on my caramel latte. I asked her what her best drawings were, and selected one of them for her to draw.

Can you guess what character she drew?

Eric’s 日本酒 (rice wine), C’s tea, My Caramel Latte

Everyone photographing the drinks, including me.
But hey! It so happens you can see how the cafe looks like in my photo. What a serendipitous snapshot! #notbreakingrule

By the way, my caramel latte was atrocious. It’s basically watered down syrup — yukkk! The pikachu (did you guess correctly?) redeemed it only ever so slightly.

Soon, another maid came by with a board that had photos of all the maids on duty that day, and asked us to pick the maids we want to take a photo with.

Eric picked one, and I was deliberating which one to pick. For some reason, I felt a bit bad if both of us picked other people and not her (the maid holding the board), and since she was very cheery and cute, I decided to pick her!

Then we were just chatting and chilling, when suddenly a sweet voice announced over the music “My master Eric, will you please come to the stage. My master, Eric!”

Both of us half pushed, half shooed a very confused person on to the stage while we kept LOLing lol.

The maid presented a box and he was supposed to pick something from the box.

This was what he drew out of the box:

-extremely tickled- “Omg, what did I just do? Hahahaha”

-finally calms down enough to process things- “Wait, you want me to — what?”

Nothing much. Just a photo.

To look cool or cute? The struggle is real.

For me, I asked Maruru (the maid I chose) to choose everything for me, from headband to pose. So I don’t have to be responsible for my actions hahaha.

But I know la. You don’t give a crap about our faces. You just want to see the maids right?!

NAH. Give you.

These are photos on the photo folder

You can see the full list of maids here.

We took out a game to play, but the hour was up before we even realized it.

After we paid, we each received…

A member card!

This is the bronze card. Visit 5 times and it’s upgraded to a silver card. Benefits come with every rank promotion. For example, silver members only pay 500 yen cover charge instead of 600 yen.

I was looking at the website and I saw that the highest rank is the Super Black Card. To reach that rank, one needs to visit 5,000 times. FIVE THOUSAND. o_O I wonder if anyone holds that card…

In short, it was fun and I’m glad I finally got to go! Thanks ah Eric for letting me drag you there. You enjoyed yourself also right?! I can tell from the photo. LOL.

Do I recommend it? Yes! Definitely an interesting experience you have to try at least once!

They have a full English website, and I also heard several maids speaking in (very simple) English, so tourists will definitely have no problem here. In the first place, they already get significant tourists visiting, which is why they have everything in English.

We saw kids and people who visited on their own (not just guys; there was a girl who was there on her own too!) so anything goes here. No reason to be shy! Ok, I’m starting to sound like a tout, so I shall stop -_-