{"id":17248,"date":"2014-05-19T11:46:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T02:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/?p=17248"},"modified":"2016-10-14T11:58:43","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T02:58:43","slug":"no-587-current-waseda-student-opens-cafe-delivering-deliciousness-and-happiness-one-customer-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/attention-en\/2014\/05\/19\/17248\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 587 Current Waseda student opens cafe! : Delivering deliciousness and happiness, one customer at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yukina Hirai
\nFourth Year, School of Political Science and Economics<\/strong><\/p>\n

Located a five minute walk from the Waseda Campus along Waseda-dori, the Foru Cafe is Japan\u2019s first brulee French toast specialist restaurant. It is a tiny cafe with just 14 seats. The shop offers French toast which has been bruleed, a word which means \u201cto burn\u201d in French. Take a bite and you will experience a crispy, caramelized surface and a delicate interior that melts like pudding in your mouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough there are many delicious foods in the world, I believe that the texture is what is important to really leaving an impression. I hunted for the right ingredients and researched appaleil (liquid batter) mixtures to soak the bread in until I was satisfied. When a customer says it\u2019s delicious, I\u2019m so happy I could skip,\u201d says Yukina Hirai with a smile. A current Waseda student, she runs the Foru Cafe as its manager.<\/p>\n

\"The

The fashionable and girly d\u00e9cor of the Foru Cafe draws the eye. The cafe also offers meal-style French toast dishes made without sugar.<\/p><\/div>\n

At any rate, Hirai has always liked to eat. Starting with a part-time job at a popular pancake restaurant chain after entering university, she instantly became captivated with cooking. In her second year she made the decision to travel to the main restaurant in Sidney to study. At first, she did not even know simple kitchen terminology, and even felt helpless on occasion, but she spent her days taking notes, reviewing cooking methods, and studying the language. Her efforts were recognized and before she knew it, she was entrusted to be an assistant in the development of new menu items. \u201cMany times I experienced how food overcomes the barriers of language.\u201d Ultimately, it was the power of food which supported her through her troubles in a foreign country.<\/p>\n

\"Traveling

Traveling abroad on the working holiday visa system to gain useful skills at a famous pancake restaurant in Sidney.<\/p><\/div>\n

After returning to Japan, food changed from being her desire to how she defined herself. After working in catering and participating in a rental cafe once a month, Hirai felt the urge to take on the challenge of operating a business continuously and decided to start her own cafe. Everything moved quickly once the decision was made. In just under three months, she opened the cafe. \u201cI felt that nothing would get started unless I moved. First I began by looking for a place and then I held interviews for staff, while at the same time gathering capital to open the cafe… In the end, about 20 people helped me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has now been six months since she opened her cafe last year. Going to classes and managing the cafe at the same<\/p>\n

\"Messages

Messages from work friends when returning home to Japan<\/p><\/div>\n

time has been harder than Hirai expected. \u201cThe cafe opens at 11 a.m., so as soon as the first period finished at the campus, I have to start preparing for the day. Once, when one of my staff was unable to come in to work during exams, I spent several days working at the cafe in the afternoon and studying for tests in the evening, with practically no time for sleep.\u201d Thanks to her natural gumption and with help from her friends, however, Hirai has been able to overcome such difficulties. Hirai has also succeeded in keeping business on track and things are moving into the black, as well. Hirai, however, does not believe this positive trend will continue uninterrupted forever. She says with a laugh, \u201cThat\u2019s because I can\u2019t use the title of \u2018female university student\u2019 forever. I want to keep doing this, partly to pay back my friends who\u2019ve helped me, so I\u2019d like to build it a caf\u00e9 with a good impact on society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The

The cafe\u2019s popular Blueberry Cheese Cake. It is garnished with rich ice cream and a pie crust cookie.<\/p><\/div>\n

Going forward, Hirai says she would like to make everyone happy through food-related things and not stop at the concept of a cafe, with such ideas as catering planned by Foru Cafe. Bringing smiles to people through her food. That is what makes Hirai the happiest.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

—————————————————————-<\/p>\n

\u25a0Yukina\u3000Hirai\u3000\u3000Originally from Hiroshima Prefecture, Yukina Hirai graduated from Hiroshima University Attached High School. She is the manager of Foru Cafe, a shop which specializes in brulee French toast. The name is derived from the phrase \u201cfor u\u201d (for you). As part of her hobby, marathons, she has run full marathons in Honolulu and Sidney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yukina Hirai Fourth Year, School of Political Science and Economics Located a five minute walk from the Waseda […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3614,"featured_media":17253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[214,245],"class_list":["post-17248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-attention-en","tag-people-en","tag-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17248"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17255,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17248\/revisions\/17255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}