Komeda’s Coffee in Bali

Written By Kurashi no Bungu - くらしの文具

This is a slight deviation from fountain pens, but I love Komeda's Coffee.

Founded in Nagoya in 1968, Komeda is a well-established brand domestically. I attribute this to many things, but most notably the combination of hot towels and a pack of peanuts provided upon sitting down. The ambience is an extremely Showa-era take on a Western cafe: warm lighting, red velvet seats, wooden tables. There's something about it that has always reminded me of Professor Layton. A particular flavour of nostalgic, slightly otherworldly Europeanness as imagined through a Japanese lens. Comfortable, slightly unreal, and entirely its own thing.

The consistency in ambience, amenities, and menu makes Komeda's a personal sanctuary. It's a place I can always rely on for light sustenance, a warm coffee, or simply somewhere to put my things down and smoke before continuing on with the day. It is also one of the places I most reach for my fountain pen and write. The latter is perhaps the strongest reason for my affinity with Komeda.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I stumbled upon this great establishment in Bali. I had to go.

Arriving by car, I was greeted by a parking lot of hospital proportions. Real estate is not the constraint here that it is in Japanese cities. The building itself, freestanding, bears the same architectural confidence you'd find at a suburban Komeda's. It has the space to express itself, rather than hiding on a shared building's second floor, detectable only by a sign.

What impressed me most, though, was the vestibule. Despite Bali's single, permanent season, Komeda had maintained that two-door buffer zone complete with a glass display of sampuru (hyper-realistic wax food models). Inside, the main hall was adorned with lamps hanging from the ceiling, yellow light warming the wood and cream walls, and red velvet seats. It is the Komeda I know. When I opened the menu, I half expected it to be in Japanese.

Not everything carried over. The hot towels were absent. So were the single serving peanuts. A real shame. And when I asked where I could smoke, I was directed outside.

Between my partner, her cousin, and myself, we ordered as one does at Komeda's: a breakfast set of black coffee and ogura toast, an egg salad sando, an ebi katsu sando. The ogura was a shade darker than I'm used to, and the butter already spread on the toast instead of on its own, but nothing tasted unfamiliar or out of place.

After digesting the food, I concluded that Bali’s Komeda is worthy of the name. It delivers on almost all the things that matter. In this humidity, I can forgive the absence of the hot towels. The peanuts, though, were a real shame. Taken as a whole, stumbling into a Komeda's in Bali is something like running into a close friend unexpectedly while travelling abroad. You didn't plan for it, but you're glad they're there.

Perhaps it's better to hear from my partner, who was considerably less thrilled to have come all this way only to visit another Komeda's. When asked for her verdict: "It's just Komeda."

High praise, indeed.

—Ban-ei (挽栄) No. 50, Sailor Blue Black

Kurashi no Bungu - くらしの文具
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