1. Tahdig! I think that only makes sense if you’re one of the three people I spoke with about it, but it’s awesome anyways.
2. Café Verführen has great souvenirs. Their shot glasses are etched, not printed, and their Sunday-morning gift boxes are copied from real vintage labels (seriously).
3. Ryusei is never ever without less than immaculately dressed. I think I’m a little bit jealous.
4. I wish I had taken up Tiff’s invitation to go watch Supernatural on Saturday night. I got some ideas for First and Last and Always that I needed to write down, and I didn’t see her at all on Sunday. She seemed like a good person to know.
5. In general, wish I were better about collecting phone numbers and email addresses.
6. The official YaoiCon “bishounen” events – Bingo, the Auction, and the (ahem) Bishounen Spanking Inferno raffle – can be a lot of fun in their own rights, but… (I never finished this sentence, and I wish I could remember what I was thinking when I started it. The events are fun.
7. Mostly for DreamSkaype, I’ve uploaded a picture of my special badge from my service as a waiter for the YaoiCon Café (not Café Verführen) back in 2007. Being called a “bishounen” feels like a compliment that I can’t properly accept, so I replaced it with something more comfortable.
8. I should bring Kelda another tribute offering of chocolate next year.
9. YaoiCon is always, at the same time, more and less expensive than I thought it would be.
10. …and then Buffy staked Edward. THE END!

Most YaoiCon attendees never visit the third floor of the hotel, unless they have rooms there. I don’t blame them. The con program doesn’t mention the treasure hidden up there. I don’t know whether this is a deliberate snub or one of those complications of printing schedules and hotel management, but it’s a shame either way. The third floor is home to Café Verführen, and I think it’s my favorite event at the con.

Full Disclosure: In the Fan Alley, I wound up exchanging cards with Matta’s real-life alter-ego, and she gave me a button with the Café Verführen logo. I gave her a Tybalt button in return, but take this how you will.

This is a fairly late review, mostly because I kept throwing out my earlier drafts. I don’t like rehashing old reviews, and most of what I said in last year’s writeup still holds true. It seems inadequate, though; there’s something magically captivating about the Café, something hard to pin down and describe. The experience is enchanting, somehow much more than the sum of its parts.

On one level, the Café is just that: a café. In that role, it’s one of the better places to eat at the convention. For about eight dollars, the hotel will hand you two thoroughly mediocre hot dogs from the warming tray, or a high-school-cafeteria hamburger and a bag of chips. For about the same price, the Café will serve you a plate of chicken teriyaki, with steamed vegetables that add color and balance out the softer textures of chicken and rice. Come the inevitable slow, lazy Sunday morning, the hotel will sell you the same hot dogs or hamburger, but the Café staff prepares a special prix-fixe menu, with pastries from a local bakery, tea sandwiches (your choice, salmon, cucumber, or a little of both), and little chocolate-dipped Belgian cookies.

I won’t say that it’s perfect, but its flaws are small and charming. Ryusei admits to a certain chronic tardiness. Hotel management hands down a few restrictions; I think Matta would like more fire in his kitchen. Still, I think my biggest personal complaint comes from the disappearance of mineral water from the dinner menu. It’s an incredibly small thing, totally understandable, but I like mineral water, and I feel compelled to complain about something, just so that this post will not turn into an uninterrupted wall of effusive praise.

In general, though, the Café is a wonderful at-con retreat for those who would prefer to enjoy their food rather than merely to refuel, to dine rather than to feed.

That’s not the magic of Café Verführen, though. Café Verführen is more than just a place to eat.

Give the staff a little bit of your time, and Café Verführen comes alive.

In one of my earlier drafts, I wrote: I get the feeling that neither Matta nor Ryusei would be satisfied with “good enough”. Matta would object, I think, because it would offend his work ethic, Ryusei because it would offend his ego. This says a lot about the staff and their dedication to improving on what they’ve done before, but more importantly, it says a lot about the characters that they’ve created, and the way they’ve led me to relate to them. They have history and motives, endearing quirks and real depth.

When poor Sebastian called in with the mother of all sick excuses, quarantined at Narita under suspicion of carrying H1N1, I had to laugh, because it’s a very clever way to handwave that someone couldn’t make it to the con… but part of me wanted to know that he’d be OK and arrive home soon. Jacob’s dry aura of frustration makes it easy to see why he has long talks with the company counselor, and Nishi’s affectionate concern seems only natural when he promises his friend a ride after work. Faced with such an extreme staff shortage, even Matta was pulled out of the kitchen to wait tables, and I didn’t have to stay afterwards to know that he would be grumbling about it for hours.

Ryusei hung out a Help Wanted sign, attracting the attention of “Bob” (actually another Sebastian, of Kuroshitsuji fame). “Bob” had a little trouble adjusting, and but he seemed to get in the spirit of things quickly enough. His various torments and indignities were fun and endearing, and I hope to see “Bob” return in the future, not only because he likes my kitty ears, but because he’s become a part of the Café Verführen story.

That’s the thing that sets Café Verführen apart, the thing that makes me place my reservations the hour the guest list opens, the thing that makes me rewrite my review over and over, trying to do justice to all the people and all the planning involved. Fanservice is easy, but chemistry is hard. Chemistry is more powerful, though, more valuable, and ultimately more fulfilling, and it’s there that the Café really shines. It doesn’t need to take its clothes off to enchant its guests; it can do that with plot and substance, refinement and understated charm. It can pull me into its little dream-world story, and it can make me care.

Café Verführen’s magic is very simple. It’s summed up in just five words, and as long as it doesn’t change, I’ll keep coming back for years.

Café Verführen makes me believe.

To visit, I had to leave the frantic, hurried energy of the con; it takes up an inconspicuous, well-furnished suite tucked away on the third floor of the hotel. There was a small line waiting by the door when I arrived, but Café Verführen seats only twenty-two at capacity, which kept the group small and patient. Everyone was seated in short order, more or less on time. I can’t imagine that the two cafés attract substantially different clientele, so I’m left crediting the room’s accoustics for keeping the background noise to a low murmur. The quiet was a very nice touch; even when the evening ran a little behind schedule, the atmosphere stayed relaxed and graciously unhurried.

Having experienced (and enjoyed) the (non-professional) host-café as both server and guest now, I have a hard time expressing how much I admire what Café Verführen has created. Details like that make the difference between a great event and a mediocre one, and the details are where they sweep the field. They’ve created something full of little refinements, tiny considerations of the nuances of their guest experience. Some of them are as simple as sheets of paper; the menus weren’t printed on plain white bond, and they weren’t stack-cut to quarter-sheet. The drinks are served in glass, not Styrofoam. Those sound small, almost inconsequential, and on one level they are, but on another they’re tactile, hardwired directly to the brain, and I felt the difference even through gloves. Those choices have weight, in a very literal way, and even if they weren’t made consciously, weight has meaning; it feels like a natural manifestation of a commitment to do things right.

I felt a sense of pride coming from the staff – not arrogance, just confident, fannish pride, a friendly sort of Look at this wonderful thing we’ve made to share with you – and I think it’s well-justified. Our food came arranged on small, comfortable plates, simple and well-executed. One of my tablemates ordered a cocktail, some beautifully colorful concoction decorated with lemon and cherry, and mentioned that, even half-consumed, it looked like it had come out of some food-porn magazine studio.

N.B.: not all of the cocktails are fancy or proper; one I noticed consisted of a can of soda topped in whipped cream. I’m sure there’s a story behind that. This is almost expected when the sealed packets on the tables are not, in fact, moist towelettes.

As food-centric a person as I can be, though, I have to say that host cafés should not be slightly-pricey at-con restaurants; the hosts should be their star attractions. Again, Café Verführen shines through in the details. Almost by necessity the YaoiCon Café’s boys exist in vacuums, apart from one another, if they step in-character at all; it’s hard to construct a milieu where so many different characters (from so many different worlds and genres) can wait tables side by side. On the other hand, Café Verführen has a unified sense of identity, and it gives the staff room to create not only distinct, in-context personas, but also chemistry.

For example, the chef is temperamental about his kitchen, and he commonly shouts at waiters and underlings who get in his way, even threatening them with bodily harm. Sometimes he even locks horns with his half-brother, the owner; in perfect YaoiCon fashion they manage to kiss and make up once their tempers cool. Even in lower-key moments it’s hard to escape the feeling that these characters have lives that their guests never see; Jacob, one of the servers, is an artist in his off-time, and he can’t resist signing the desserts he serves, or decorating them with flourishes and hearts. In one-off comments, in-jokes, and body-language, the staff suggest that we’re only seeing a few scattered pages out of some longer, cohesive narrative. As much as Jacob likes to sulk and mutter about the drama surrounding him, I think that even he would admit that it’s a pleasure to be drawn in, at least for a little while.

All this said, Café Verführen isn’t perfect; for all its polished details, it misses one or two, slipping out of character here and there to remind us of its charming, fannish roots. It might be better that way; I think I might feel exploited afterwards, almost offended, if it were too professional.

I’m gushing a little bit, I know, because it struck a chord with me, something more important than a light dinner and an evening’s entertainment. Last year, after serving, I said that our guests deserved better than what we offered. For this visit, at least, Café Verführen was the better that I hoped we could have given.