Besides being famous for it’s drunk cows, Kobe also has a decent café scene. The fool proof way to a savvy lunch or kitsch coffee is definitely (in my opinion) Motomachi. A 10 minute walk south-west of Sannomiya station will land you in café central. Vintage shops, boutiques, burger joints and veggie cafes make up the majority of businesses in Motomachi.

 

When there is this much choice in this quieter end of town, one can get overwhelmed but I’m here to help. I’ve singled out one café & bistro that only opened its doors in April 2014.

Nomadika is a bright, spacious place with the added touch of hipster bikes for sale (every business needs a USP*). The wide tables, fresh décor and floods of natural sunlight plead for summer get-togethers and long lunches.

 

The lunch menu is simple with only 4 dishes to choose from, two pasta dishes, grilled pork loin and (always managing to make an appearance) Wagyu beef steak frites. After sampling the spicy tomato, octopus and squid pasta and the tender pork pasta I can conclude they are both satisfactory lunch meals. The ingredients were fresh, the sauces were well seasoned but don’t expect to be transported to Italy in one mouthful.

The lunch set ranges from ¥1,280-¥2,000 which includes salad, bread, homemade gazpacho and all-you-can-drink wine. YES you heard right, until 3pm, you can indulge in all the sparkling wine from the bar and all the wine from the wine cellar to your liver’s content. They operate a self service drinks bar with a variety of exciting soft drinks too, including rooibos iced tea and balsamic vinegar juice (for the more daring).

 

Kobe has reinvented brunch by a subtle change in lettering, blunch.

Perhaps even ready to enter into the Oxford English Dictionary:
Blunch. (noun) a boozy lunch
(verb) to eat blunch: we regularly blunch at the weekend but rarely remember doing so…

 

Begin with a tipple, follow with tiramisu (+¥200 to the lunch price), cure the midday hangover with a latte, stumble into the evening, and stay for a Eurasian dinner. All doable at Nomadika Café & Bistro.

Join the blunch revolution.