Enjoy a Taste of Nagano at the Detective Conan Cafe

For many of the popular anime series in Japan, fans can look forward to an annual movie with a theatrical release where their favorite characters go on epic adventures. Not only does it create an opportunity for new stories and characters that you might not see in the original work, it also leads to exciting collaborations, new merchandise and events.

This year, the Detective Conan movie Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback is set in the prefecture of Nagano. Nagano, also known as Shinshu, is a landlocked prefecture located in the center of Japan’s Honshu island in the Chubu region. It is home to some of the tallest mountain peaks that make up the Japanese Alps and is a popular area for snowboarding and skiing. It was the host of the 1998 Winter Olympic games for that reason.

Since the movie is set in such a specific location, fans are not only able to enjoy the thrilling mystery taking place in the snowy mountains of the prefecture but they also get to experience sights and landmarks within the prefecture itself as the story unfolds.

One of these landmarks is the Nobeyama Radio Observatory which is heavily featured in the climax of the movie. It is free and open to the public, so many fans of the series have even taken pilgrimage trips to Nagano to see the locations themselves and relive their favorite scenes.

For fans who wanted to experience some of what Nagano has to offer but maybe couldn’t make the trip all the way there, the latest Detective Conan theme cafe has got them covered! The cafe chose to center its menu on Nagano’s speciality, soba noodles. Nagano is known for its soba noodles due to the abundance of buckwheat that grows in that area.

Although soba is a traditional Japanese food, the cafe made the creative choice to have the overall theme be modelled after a Western butler cafe. This meant that the specially drawn art showed each of the characters donning smart suits which gave the entire dining experience a unique and elegant feel.

The interior of the cafe was also decorated with framed artwork of the characters in their suits as well as artwork of the characters in different styles such as chibi-style and in the style of a stained glass window.

The theme changes every time but the cafe is held every year. To commemorate this year’s run, the decor also featured new artworks that were drawn and signed by the manga artist Gosho Aoyama.

Soba can be enjoyed in a variety of ways by changing the toppings that it is served with. At the cafe, the main menu featured dishes of bukkake soba (cold soba noodles with a broth poured over it) which were arranged with a variety of toppings to match each of the eight characters that made up the roster for the cafe.

While we wish we could have tried all the food that the cafe had to offer, we chose to enjoy the dishes themed after Conan Edogawa and Ran Mōri.

Conan’s soba dish was served with tenkasu, pork, green onion and grated daikon. What made it stand out was the bright blue color of the tenkasu which immediately brought to mind his signature jacket. To complete the look, there was a wafer in the shape of his red bowtie and a slice of fish cake with his silhouette printed on it.

To accompany Conan’s soba, we chose the APTX 4869 mini curry. Like the soba, this dish was also visually striking and immediately immersed you in the world of the series. The curry itself was pork curry that was nicely spiced and came with a side of nozawana. Nozawana is another Nagano speciality and is a type of green leafy vegetable that is usually pickled and eaten in the winter.

While the star of the show was soba, for Ran’s dish we selected the option to have the soba switched out for udon. This was an option available for all of the dishes in case anyone had a buckwheat allergy. The dish was topped with bonito flakes, daikon, radishes, salmon roe and was garnished with shiso leaf. It also featured a fish cake with Ran’s silhouette on it. The daikon was colored a vivid pink giving the dish a bright and cheerful look.

As a side dish for the udon, we also had the Border mini sauce katsudon (pork cutlet rice bowl). It featured a wafer that referenced the case of The Body on the Gunma-Nagano Border from the show, giving us yet another reference to Nagano. Katsudon is a dish that is often associated with police investigations as it is said that a suspect will usually confess to their crimes after being given katsudon to eat!

For dessert we tried both the Bowtie Voice Changer jelly parfait and the Conan-shaped “oyakiffle” (a combination of an oyaki and a waffle). The parfait in the shape of Conan’s bowtie voice changer is a staple at the yearly Conan Cafes and was very light and easy to eat with ramune flavored sherbet, fruity gelatin, fruits and nata de coco cubes.

The Conan-shaped oyakiffle brought more flavors of Nagano to the forefront. Oyaki is a local dish from Nagano and is a type of stuffed dumpling made from a combination of wheat and buckwheat flour. For the cafe, the oyaki was grilled in the style of a waffle shaped like Conan making it an “oyakiffle”.

It was served together with a variety of other elements including apple slices, vanilla ice cream and rosemary. Included as a palate cleanser was a bite of nozawana on the side along with red bean paste.

As a bonus with our food, we received cards that matched the character whose soba we ordered. We also received additional character cards and a book filled with puzzles that we could solve. Perfect for all the mystery-loving fans spending time at the cafe.

At this cafe, fans were not only able to celebrate the release of the latest movie but also experience speciality foods from Nagano Prefecture. Thanks to the carefully curated menu, it was like taking a trip to Nagano without having to leave the area!

In this way theme cafes can also provide the opportunity to enjoy local delicacies and better appreciate the regional dishes of Japan.

© Gosho Aoyama/Shogakukan,Yomiuri TV, TMS 1996