I’m a selfish eater. My husband always wants to share food. He’ll say, “Hey, let’s split some fries.” Or worse, “Let’s share an ice cream cone.” Share an ice cream cone? Are you crazy? No, I get my cone and you get yours. Sadly, that’s just how I feel when it comes to food. I need to focus on it single-mindedly. And when I’m hungry and for some reason can’t get to it, I transform into a raving, shaking, lunatic.

When I got pregnant though, I knew that someday this would have to change. I’d watch moms out at restaurants giving all their french fries to their kids; running back and forth to the bathroom several times during a meal to heed their children’s pleas to go pee; stopping between each bite of food to pick up a toy dropped from the high chair again…and again…and again. It’s a wonder that moms can eat at all, and I worried about how, when I had my child, I would cope. Would I ever be able to eat out again?

My son is six months old now. Gone are the days where he would snooze peacefully in his car seat, while I lingered over a latte. Instead, he likes to bounce on my lap, lunge for cutlery, and eat paper napkins or whatever else is within his shockingly long reach. Slowly, I am coming to terms with the inevitable — that my days of leisurely dining with will most likely be on pause for awhile. And how do I feel about it? Me, the selfish, non-sharing, non-inturruption-liking eater? Well, surprisingly, (most days)… fine. I’m finding that, like most things in life, you learn to adapt. To tuck an extra granola bar or three in your bag to stave off the hunger. Or pick the table with a ready supply of those heighly entertaining plastic wrapped napkins. Or to begin frequenting kid-friendly locales, which in my case, for now at least, means “baby friendly”.

Fortunately, we live in Japan where “kid-friendly” dining does not necessarily equate to Chuck E. Cheese style mayhem. (Chuck E. Cheese was my first ever job, by the way. I wore the costume. I sang the happy birthday songs. I listened to the mechanical puppet band sing “Play Me Song Mountain Music” so many times that I can’t listen to Alabama without having flashbacks. I will never ever set foot into a Chuck E. Cheese again. Well…until I do.) Kid friendly means tatami rooms where your child can roll on a blanket all over the floor and you don’t have to feel guilty about keeping him confined to a carseat or high chair. Or where the staff or fellow customers will totally love on your child, bouncing and cooing with him or her long enough that you can eat your whole meal in peace while your child enjoys the doting. I’ve found Sora restaurant in Chatan to be the epitome of this type of friendliness, what with its bevy of baby lovin’ middle-aged Japanese women clientele. Jakkepoes too, does a fine job.

Finally, kid (baby) friendly to me means having a place where you can change your child’s diaper with ease and Japan is at tip-top form when it comes to this. Again, the tatami room comes in handy for this purpose, but also in many Japanese restaurants, shops, airports and hotels you will find the full-on mommy room. I love the mommy room. Not only do they have big cribs where you can change your baby (not those nasty plastic baby station things like in American bathrooms), but also a nursing station with a chair and table where you can sit down and comfortably nurse him or her. Often they have a sink with clean water to make your formula. In Jusco they have a scale to weigh your baby and a measuring stick to check his growth. Wow! (AAFES, please take note. No nursing in the changing room or hiking back to your car here!) They have a great mommy room in the Max Plus complex near Awase, in the Rabbit Store, Osaka Airport, the Beach Tower hotel in American Village, and the place I am supposed to be writing about here today.

Which brings me, finally, to the restaurant I wanted to write-up, the interestingly named, Cafe and Beauty DOC (“Dream Of Cinderella”). It’s kid-friendly. Japanese style kid-friendly. While you won’t find cartoon characters walking around or a five story playground, you will find a classy modern dining area with a section adapted to meet the needs of both children and their parents.

So, here you have a picture here of a cool orange and white dining room with groovy light fixtures.

This shot of the kiddies on a long wide bench attached to the wall covered with foam mats. The dining tables are right against it (sorry I didn’t get that in the frame) so moms can sit and eat at the table, while their small children crawl beside them and their older ones play in the play area.

Finally, here’s the children’s area with foam mat floors, a little house with a slide (it’s not in the picture), a small teeter-tooter, a box of toys, and a little tent filled with plastic balls.

It’s child friendly AND adult friendly. Ingenious.

Right next to the kitchen there’s a door with Japanese writing on it, pass through it and you enter the mommy room, where you can change and nurse your young one in private.

So, what’s the food like? Well, check out this picture of the menu.

It’s in Japanese, but the owner tells me he’s working on an English one. Anyway, it has pictures. You can get curry, chicken cutlet, a daily special like pork-stir fry and light fare like that for less than 1000 yen. (My chicken cutlet, rice, soup, salad from the salad bar and coffee were 780 yen.) You can order a very cute bento-esque looking kids meal and even a baby meal for kids 7-15 months old.

The owner tells me that he’s got big plans for Cafe DOC. In a few weeks, they will be upgrading the play area to make it bigger and include more tables. For now, he recommends stopping in or calling to make reservations if you want to sit in that area of the restaurant for reservations. Especially on the weekend or weekdays around noon to 1pm.

And below you have the exterior of the building, my friend’s lunch items, and another interior shot.

Hours and Phone:

Open Daily. Lunch 11:30-15:00, Dinner 17:30-22:30
098-926-0308

Directions:

From Kadena Gate 1: Take Hwy 58 South towards American Village. Make a right at the Four Seasons steak restaurant on the corner. Make your first left. (There’s a sushi go round and karaoke bar at the corner.) The restaurant will be on the left hand side of the road between a red tiled Japanese style building and the Crocodile restaurant with the big crab in front of it. The American Village/Jusco parking lot is right across the street from it, but there’s plenty of parking right around the building.