Coffee and Toast Sangenjaya — As Seen In Japan

We try to eat healthy in the morning. Each day, we have coffee, orange juice, and oatmeal with blueberries, mixed nuts, cinnamon, honey, wheat germ, chia seeds, and flaxseed. We’re those kinds of people. But sometimes we like to be bad. This year, on New Year’s Eve, I was up early and I wanted to be bad. So we were bad.

Welcome to Coffee & Toast

Coffee and Toast is a small cafe in Sangenjaya, a neighborhood in Setagaya City that’s home to yours truly. They claim to have a menu of over 1,000 items, and looking at their Instagram, I honestly believe them. According to the Internet, there’s often a line here, but we showed up at 9am right after they opened on December 31st, so there were only two other people there, in addition to the woman who made our food and took our order and the man who delivered the food. A couple? I don’t know. I don’t want to assume. Maybe they just like to hang together. Don’t judge.

The giant menu at Coffee and Toast

The menu is done by QR code, but there’s also hand-drawn pictures of the menu items on the wall. Boy oh boy, do they have a lot of stuff. If you want a burger with six patties, they have it. If you want a half-loaf of bread covered in marshmallows, they have it. If you want beef stew toast, they have that too. Shrimp toast. Strawberry Mont Blanc toast. If you can dream it up, they can probably make it. Some items were pretty expensive, but thankfully there are also Regular and Small versions of a lot of things, so you don’t have to go all out. We went all out.

Drinks at Coffee and Toast

They had oat milk! I got a (somewhat expensive) latte that was traditionally made, with the coffee a little hot, but tasty and necessary when eating so much toast. Eriko got an orange juice that tasted like mikan and even had a slice of mandarin orange on top. We ate it at the end of the meal. Delicious. They brought out the drinks shortly before delivering our food. It took a little while for the food to come, so I imagine if the place is full, you may be waiting a bit since it’s one lady doing all the cooking.

Savory toast at Coffee and Toast

Look at the size of that toast. They don’t slice the toast around here - you get a huge block of bread that can be torn into corner pieces, but is generally just one big poofy lump. The butter soaks all the way down to make a delicious flavor. Honestly, the best bite of anything I had at this meal was the buttery toast.

But that wasn’t all! There was, in addition to some salad I didn’t eat, perfectly-seasoned eggs (Americans would call these undercooked but whatever) to dip the toast in, on top of a whole lot of crispy bacon. The bacon was burnt, but they get credit for at least trying to make it crispy, as crisp bacon is a rarity in Japan.

I thought Eriko and I were going to go half-and-half, where I’d eat half the sweet one and she’d eat half the savory one, and then we’d switch, but she nuked that idea and refused to switch. So I had a little of hers, but not enough. Next time, I’m getting this one.

Sweet s’mores toast at Coffee & Toast

Our sweet choice was s’mores flavor, and holy cow those were some big marshmallows. The chocolate sauce dripped down and the toast caved in as soon as I tried to cut it. The sauce was strong and the bread good just like the butter kind, but what made this was the marshmallow. It didn’t taste as good unless you got a full s’more bite with toast, chocolate, and marshmallow all on the same fork.

Eriko tried a couple bites and said “enough,” and I agree. This is one where you should get the small size, as regular is only for when you want to be a pig because it’s December 31st and you’ve promised to be healthy in the new year. I was about ready to explode from the food. And then I scooped up some chocolate with my knife and tried to eat it off the knife and stabbed myself in the lip. I can’t take me anywhere.

I cannot stress enough just how giant the toast is. It’s not a slice of toast; it’s a loaf of bread with toppings. The only comparable place in Tokyo is Shoto Cafe, where they serve a huge roast beef sandwich and big slices of cake, but those are much more manageable. This is a feat to finish, and I believe I deserve a medal.

Overall, the savory was best, but with a reported 1,000 menu items, there’s plenty more to try. Steak? Beef and eggs? Marshmallow extravaganza? We won’t run out of stuff to sample soon, and considering how good it was, we’ll likely be back. The male proprietor (the one who didn’t do the cooking) walked us outside and bowed in thanks. What a great place to have a celebratory breakfast.

Verdict: is Coffee and Toast in Sangenjaya worth visiting?

There was one other couple there when we were, furiously taking pictures of their food. They got the hamburger and egg toast and the Mont Blanc toast, and both looked tasty, but I still think next time I’m going for the bacon and eggs. Although, they don’t offer that one in a small, so I may be in trouble.

Yes, this place is expensive: $44 for breakfast is a bit much, though not when you consider the amount of food, and it’s not like you’re going to eat here every day. It’s a special occasion place, and they give you a whole lot of toast. I think it’s impressive how many things they can make, and how good the food is. We’ll absolutely come back here; just not for the next four months, because the diet starts tomorrow. I swear.