One of my new favorite cafes in Kochi City, Terzo Tempo, also happens to be a type of Komin cafe (like Ocho-8).
With the whole front of the restaurant level opened up, the cafe gets a lot of natural lighting. Combined with the simple decor of a past time and incredibly fresh food, Terzo Tempo makes it very tempting to waste the afternoon away there. If you've had enough of sightseeing, or have a very leisurely schedule, I would suggest you do just this.
As you can tell from the pictures, the lunch when I went was a very tender Hamburg steak with flavorful eringi mushrooms, a fresh salad, and sekihan rice. The meal was remarkably good, and I really enjoyed the sekihan. This is rice that is cooked with azuki beans, but a lot of times it is too sweet for me. At Terzo Tempo, it didn't taste like they added any sugar so the flavor was just right.
The owner of the cafe is a young guy who loves chatting about music, art, and books. In fact, he sells a variety of other things at his store. I ended up buying a book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes that had been translated into Japanese, and illustrated with woodblock looking images. He had an arrangement of other interesting books on the bookshelf by our table that were a lot of fun to browse through.
In addition to running the cafe, he and his wife also grow wheat up in the mountains north of the city. I found this out after asking him about some very healthy looking cookies and other sweets he had at the register. I also learned that originally from Tokyo, he visited Kochi several years ago, loved the slow pace of life, and has been enjoying life here ever since.
Although a little on the pricey side for an everyday kind of lunch (especially if you get a fancy coffee), you get so much more than nice food and coffee from Terzo Tempo that it feels worth every yen. You leave feeling very relaxed and somehow enlightened after your visit there. As it came highly recommended to me, I can also highly recommend it to anyone visiting Kochi City.
Not too far east from downtown, you can get to Terzo Tempo on foot or by taking the streetcar.
