The Lockup

You have a big Japanese test. The test is first period (9 am) so you have to get up at 6:20 am to be on time. What do you do the night before?

A)  Go home, study and go to bed early.
B) Go eat ramen with some Japanese friends to practice speaking.
C) Cry and shout "wrrryyyy" every once in a while.
D) Go to a prison themed jail with your friends, get chased by Santa zombies, eat too much toast dessert, do shots in capsule form, all the while staying up way too late.

If you answered A, you're probably a good student...However, I chose D.

This is totally one of these situations by the way...

Anyway....

Tokyo has many themed restaurants. I already blogged about the Alice in Wonderland cafe, and there is also a Vampire cafe I may have to check out in the future, but last Friday night my friend's and I hit up the restaurant known as "The Lockup". (It has a few locations but we went to the one in Ikebukuro). The Lockup has a sort of futuristic prison theme. Upon entering the place, your party is sectioned off by a guard to have everyone walk through a narrow, dark and creepy, maze-like area which gets you a bit freaked out. Finally reaching the end of this pathway, you are greeted by another guard- this time in sexy girl form- who handcuffs one member of your party and escorts you to your cell.

Walking down:

To the cells!

Our cell as seen from our table:

We're in Jaaaaaaail :<

And it's scaaary:

Anyway, the rule of the restaurant was everyone had to order at least one drink and one meal item. We knew this place was going to be spendy so we had planned on only eating dessert and getting drinks here. Well, while the food didn't follow the theme, the drinks sure did (or rather, they followed the theme of the customer being used as a test subject.)

Our table before the chaos:

And here come the drinks:

Photo by Dorothy

On the right is juice, left is a layer of alcohol, ice, cotton candy and in the middle of it all, pop rocks. You pour the juice in and your drink becomes a poppy, exciting, delicious thing.

My drank:

  Grind up the oreo and dump it in!  Expirimentaaaaaatioooonnnss~

James' drink:

Mystery syringe goo (aka alcohol)! Add it to the beaker of soda.

Expirimentaaaationsss! Julie's drink:

Caution: may have adverse side affects BWAHAHA

Julie's drink was the most complex. 2 of the test tubes had juice, 3 had alcohol, 1 water. Then, the big beaker contained this stuff called Calpis Chew-hi (more alcohol) there was a beaker of ice where she could mix everything together, aka her glass.

We also got a round of these: shots in pill form

Everybody Kanpai! (Cheers!)

Anyway now to the Dessert. Well, maybe we could've had a variety of things...but we saw these toast dessert dishes and just had to try them.  Yes, all 3 they offered.

First, banana chocolate...Before:

Photo by Dorothy

After:

Don't worry we finished. (Duh)

Second: Strawberry

Photo by Dorothy 

Last but not least, Maple:

You're probably wondering what these are even.
It's basically like a cube of hollowed out bread, but then filled with cubes of toast and ice cream and sauce and oh man I'm getting hungry again.

The fun didn't end there though. Halfway through our dinner, the lights go out and the black lights came on! A loud siren sounds an alarm as escaped zombie prisoners start running about the restaurant! (It being closed to Christmas time, the zombies were wearing things like Santa suits. Hilarious) Well, they threw open our cell door and got all up in our faces and were super scary. But it's okay, cause in the end, the sexy police chicks won and escorted them back to their cells.

Overall this restaurant was super fun. Kind of spendy, but you are paying for the entertainment as well (and it was very entertaining). You don't tip in Japan (it's considered rude, like suggesting that the workers don't get paid enough), and so there's extra fees in your bill on top of food costs. I think I would like to go again though, this one was more fun than the Alice cafe.

As you exit the restaurant, you pay your bail (aka check) and leave through this room of mirrors to be greeted by the first guard again. You have your freedom! And hopefully a full belly.

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Also P.S. I did fine on my test the next day even though I was a bit tired :)