Move over Starbuck’s: Sesame Cream Coffee 金胡麻ミルク珈琲

I’m generally not enthusiastic about flavored coffee drinks, but I make an exception for the sesame cream coffee at the Ueshima chain. It’s milky coffee with a yummy blob of sesame cream that gradually melts into the drink. Ueshima doesn’t have English menus, but in Japanese it’s called 金胡麻ミルク珈琲 (“kin-goma miruku ko-hi). I’m pretty sure they’d understand if you asked in English for “sesame coffee.” An M-size costs 480 yen and contains 227 calories. That’s another thing I like about Ueshima — they provide nutritional information . The shops all have a nice retro atmosphere, comfortable seats, glassed in smoking sections and jazz background music. There are about 40 shops in the Tokyo area, 13 in Kansai, two in Fukuoka and one in Okinawa. If you can read Japanese, here is a list of shops.