In the thirty year span of the Heisei Era, Japan has seen quite a few dessert trends come and go.

In 1990, tiramisu was the talk to the town, in 1991, consumers craved crème brûlée, in 1992, the first tapioca wave tempted Japanese appetites, in 1993, nata de coco jiggled its way into desserts and drinks, in 1994, panna cotta was in its prime, in 1997, everyone was biting into Belgian waffles, in 1999, "raw" chocolate (like the filling inside French truffles) was the dessert darling du jour, in 2004 people munched on macarons, in 2006 the marketing elite said "let them eat rolled cakes", in 2007, "raw" caramel (soft salted caramel whipped with crème fraîche) melted hearts, and that's not even getting into the last decade...

Many of those trends, like tapioca, (which just experienced its third wave last year), and rolled cakes are still popular, and others like nata de coco and panna cotta have faded from the ranking charts.

But even if you didn't experience those sweet trends of the Heisei Era in person, a pair of parfaits offered by the Kawara CAFE&DINING chain will let you savor many of them all in one single dessert sensation:

Heisei A La Mode

Although the dessert trends included within each parfait span most of the Heisei Era, the organizing themes for each one are clearly separated between the early Heisei and late Heisei Era.

Ganguro Heisei A La Mode

For those who don't know or remember it, ganguro is an alternative fashion subtrend within gyaru fashion featuring darkly tanned skin, bleached hair and heavily contrasting make-up. It was promoted at the time by fashion magazines egg and Popteen. Therefore, the Ganguro Heisei A La Mode parfait features dark brown colors. The poster is decorated with images of the early 90s like pagers, ganguro made-up eyes, tube socks and two slang expressions which were popular among gyaru at the time: MK5 (emukēfaibu short for maji de kireru 5-byō mae マジで切れる5秒前, literally: "I'm 5 seconds away from blowing my top"), and out of 眼中 (out of ganchū, meaning "no way").

The parfait features nata de coco, tapioca, raw chocolate (used as sauce), raw caramel (used as sauce) and Belgian waffles, not to mention ice cream, whipped cream, silver sprinkles and an Oreo cookie.

Yumekawa Heisei A La Mode

Yumekawa, short for "yume kawaii" ゆめかわいい is a subtrend within kawaii fashion which began around 2013 with Harajuku-kei model AMO. Literally meaning "dreamy cute," it's a soft, dreamy look characterized by pink and pastel colors, and often features motifs like unicorns, and nostalgia for 80's anime. It sometimes overlaps with the older Lolita fashion trend. Likewise, the Yumekawa Heisei A La Mode is unified in a pastel pink, white and red color scheme.

The very strawberry parfait features nata de coco, pannna cotta, tapioca pearls, a pink macaron, strawberry rolled cake, whipped cream, silver sprinkles and pastel colored marshmallows.


Both parfaits cost 980 JPY (excluding tax) and are available at Kawara CAFE&DINING and Kawara CAFE&KITCHEN locations in Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, Saitama Prefecture, Chiba Prefecture, Aichi Prefecture and Fukuoka Prefecture. For the complete list of locations, see the press release here.


By - Ben K.