A Nice Place for Coffee and Sweets

Coffee month continues! As I said in my last post, we had two big coffee events in Ibaraki a few weeks ago, and we have a small coffee festival happening at Himitsukichi in Tsukuba tomorrow! So much coffee during November. Honestly, this has been a hell of a month so I need a cup of coffee, or two, or a cup of coffee with some whiskey in it.
Anyway, today I am talking about a place to grab coffee, sweets, and baked goods, all in one location. To say this area is nice would be an understatement. It is an amazing place to bring a date, or just to bring the family on a nice sunny day or clear night. When it comes to food and drinks, you have your pick of three places, which I will be talking about. Today, I am talking about Mito's own Transit Folks.

Transit Folks

Transit Folks (Yeah, I can't explain the name) is located in the Sakadocho area of Mito. It is a collection of buildings that have a bakery, clothing store, hair stylist, coffee shop, and a restaurant. In case it wasn't clear by the picture above, you can also dine outside which I highly recommend.
My wife and I visited this place with a friend a few weeks ago. I don't recommend walking here since it is far from any bus stop and there is no train station in sight. If you bike here, there is parking for your bicycle. There is a small bike parking bar near the restaurant. If you drive here like we did, there is plenty of parking right by the buildings.
When my group arrived at Transit Folk, I was surprised by how many businesses were connected together. I had told my wife that I wanted to try out the bakery in the area called Flyer Bakery. I had met them at a few events and wanted to check out their bakery. What I didn't know was that it was in an amazing area with a bunch of other businesses around it. My wife and our friend loved the outside dining area and couldn't wait to hang out there. I was impressed as well and thought that I would love to come back here at night when all the lights are on.
As I wrote before, I was here to check out the bakery, but that would only be the beginning of my adventure.

Flyer Bakery

When I walked into Flyer Bakery, I was shocked. I didn't know it was a bakery and a clothing store. The clothing store area looked nice, but I wasn't interested. I headed straight for the bakery area.
We had gotten to Flyer Bakery late afternoon so most of the bread was gone. There were a few loaves and baguettes left. We weren't sure what to get so my wife made the executive decision to get a horseshoe-looking piece of bread and a small loaf of...tea bread?

Black Tea Bread

Yes, black tea bread. And yes, it tastes exactly like the name. Eating a loaf of black tea bread just by itself is good. You get exactly what you bought. My wife had a great idea of spreading some almond butter from Ibaraki's own Almond Tree Shaker on this tea bread. I thought they wouldn't match. Tea and almonds? No way these two will work well together. Surprisingly, they went very well. I had this bread for breakfast the next day with almond butter and I found that if you have it with some strong coffee, the tea after taste and strong coffee hits your taste buds like a wrecking ball. If you are not a fan of either tea or coffee, you might not want to get this bread. I love both of them so I was getting the best of both worlds.

Horseshoe Looking Bread

This is completely my fault. I forgot to write down or take a picture of the name of this bread. What I can tell you is if you go to Flyer Bakery and this bread is available, get it. It was fantastic. It had small pieces of pumpkin in it and with the seasoning that was baked into the bread, it was an amazing bread to have with coffee. I promise that if I see this bread again, I will tell you the name of it.
After we checked out the bakery, we headed to the next part of Transit Folks which is right by the restaurant. A small cafe called Staple Coffee.

Staple Coffee

Staple Coffee is a small cafe across from Flyer Bakery and right next to the restaurant across the bakery. You can eat in at the counter inside the cafe, or take your order from the order window to the outside dinning area. That is what we decided to do. We grabbed some coffee and a nice dessert to go with our coffee.

Biscuit and Honey

I ordered a regular cafe latte and decided to grab a biscuit with honey to go with it. Honestly, it wasn't a bad biscuit. I liked it. The honey made things even better. It was nice sipping on some hot cafe latte and biting into this biscuit while enjoying the outside air. I can't stress enough how awesome the outdoor dining area is. You can even bring a big group of friends or family and have a table for yourselves. Our group had our table and we just enjoyed drinking coffee with our biscuits.
I did enjoy the coffee and biscuits but the next dessert blew me away.

Espresso Pudding

I have lived in Japan for a while now and I still can't call this pudding. Where I am from we call this flan. So from now on I am calling this espresso flan. I ordered this after we finished our coffee and biscuits. After taking a bite out of this delicious-looking dessert, I am happy to say that it passed my flan test. Is it like the flan back home? No, but it is pretty close. I think this flan would do well in Miami. Especially how the sweet caramel and hard espresso flavors come together with the soft texture of the flan. This was a great dessert and my wife agreed. She was wondering if we could take one to go but we decided against it in the end. I will be having this amazing dessert again.

Transit Folks, Flyer Bakery, and Staple Coffee, thank you for the delicious baked goods, the tasty coffee and biscuits, and the incredible espresso flan. Thank you for a fantastic outside dining area that I will be visiting again. It is getting a bit colder now so outside dining might be difficult, but I will be sure to come by during spring.

So if you are around Mito and are looking to grab some bread, a coffee, a haircut, and lunch all in one place. Why not give Transit Folks a try? Who knows, you might see us there, enjoying some espresso flan while looking at the outside lights light up the beautiful dining area.
Enjoy!

For more information on Transit Folks, check out their Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/transitfolks/?hl=en

Flyer Bakery
https://www.instagram.com/flyer.transitfolks/?hl=en

Staple Coffee
https://www.instagram.com/staplecoffee.transitfolks/?hl=en

Don't forget that Himitsukichi in Tsukuba is having a coffee festival tomorrow! Hope to see you there!