If you’ve ever ventured into the world of Teyvat and wanted to try the local cuisine, now’s your chance. From Tianshu Meat to Jueyun Chili Chicken, Genshin Impact fans in the Philippines can finally taste their favorite dishes with the latest in-person experience.
HoYoverse is back with another collaboration with the Moon Rabbit Cafe and Restaurant to create a cafe experience centered around one of the hottest RPGs on the market, Genshin Impact. The developer’s other titles, like Tears of Themis and Honkai Impact, will follow suit in later weeks with their own themed events.
To get a taste of the Genshin experience, you’ll need a reservation—unless you just happen to show up and get lucky. Walk-ins are occasionally let in, but only in the event of a reservation no-showing or if there are tables still available. You might also be seated with another person you’re not familiar with if you’re going alone.
Once inside, you’ll only have about two hours to explore the place. That includes time spent taking pictures of the cafe and all it has to offer, including its bar, bulletin board, and merchandise shop that sells items ranging from pins to acrylic stands and bracelets.
At first glance, you’d think this cafe would be your average Genshin player’s dream. But the turnout looked much different than what you might expect for a cafe themed entirely around HoYoverse’s RPG title.
The atmosphere
On Sept. 29, I had the chance to visit the cafe after being invited by HoYoverse to try it out.
The cafe felt like home for Genshin fans. Its decorations included official artwork from different official artwork from Genshin throughout the years. Various characters were also plastered on the walls, with some featured as standing cutouts.
Attendees embraced the atmosphere, expressing their creativity and love for the game with varying levels of cosplay. Some showed up in full garb, while others simply wore wigs or other accessories. The staff members were very warm and friendly, with some even bantering with customers. Others would offer a hand in taking your pictures anywhere in the cafe, whether it be at the table or beside the various standees located around the venue.
In a humorous move, the staff put Venti near the bar of the cafe. During my visit, a curious staff member asked another why Venti is near the bar once again—seemingly because that’s where he was placed during the previous HoYoFEST event—and the other staff laughed and told him it was because Venti’s a drunkard.
Aside from that, the cafe plays Genshin music while you’re eating and socializing with friends and other fans. Customers can also leave messages for fellow travelers on a bulletin board. Some of the messages wished people luck in winning their 50/50s, while some were memes and drawings.
The food in the collaboration cafe is inspired by actual Genshin dishes available in the game: Jueyun Chili Chicken, Cream Stew, Tianshu Meat, and Braised Meat. They also offer an appetizer of Chicken Mushroom Skewer and beverages like Apple Cider and Berry & Mint Burst.
For my visit, I ordered a Chicken Mushroom Skewer, Cream Stew as a main dish, and Berry & Mint Burst for my drinks. I found the Chicken Mushroom Skewer and the Cream Stew to be very mediocre. I expected the Cream Stew to be a bit more creamy and the Chicken Mushroom Skewer to be larger considering you’re almost paying for a somewhat premium price.
The drink was top-notch, however. Berry & Mint Burst stood out as the highlight of the meal. The ingredients—including blueberry extracts that contribute to the beverage’s blue color and fruity flavor—made for a very sweet and fruity drink.
You can only buy merchandise if you have reserved a time slot, meaning walk-ins are out of luck. Customers who have also reserved a time slot must order a minimum of 450 PHP—or around $8 of food—to purchase merchandise. This might be disappointing to people who’ve gone through the process of obtaining reservations, which are limited, only to discover that the merch they want isn’t available anymore. Because of this, the cafe advises customers to reserve the earliest time slot to buy their desired items. I know I should have because I missed out on those bracelets that I wanted.
And while they restock their merchandise daily, they only do so in a limited fashion. If the cafe is out of that certain merch you wanted during that day, you’re out of luck.
Cafe demographic
Given how everything the cafe has to offer is centered around Genshin—from the food to decor and merch—many might expect most, if not all, attendees of a gaming cafe to be young adults or teenagers. A 2020 statistic published by German market data company Statista revealed that in 2020, roughly 44.7 million people played video games in the Philippines. Those aged 25 to 34 took the lead with the biggest share at 36.7 percent, while ages 18 to 24 trailed the closest at just over 27 percent.
But a number of generation-spanning families—complete from the elderly down to the toddlers—showed up to experience all that HoYoverse and Moon Rabbit Cafe and Restaurant had to offer.
It seems going to the collaboration cafe has become a family outing of sorts. It’s fairly obvious the elderly aren’t playing the game and are only there to support their grandkids’ hobbies. There were also younger families who ventured out with their children in cosplay and are fans of the game themselves, taking pictures with the standees and remaining overall enthusiastic about the cafe.
This diversity in turnout might be a result of Filipino culture. Filipinos have always been family-oriented, opting to do things together rather than individually. They also keep close contact with family and even extend that kind of relationship not just to immediate members, but to grandparents and beyond.
While this emphasis on family-first can have its downsides, what I found here is the wonderful side of that culture. There are families everywhere inside the cafe happily talking to their children and asking about the game so they could understand their hobbies a little better. I even saw a whole family—complete with the grandparents in tow—getting their pictures taken with a group of cosplayers.
The Genshin experience, is it worth it?
The appeal of this collaboration is for the Genshin community to have a place they can gather and talk about the game they love. The Moon Rabbit Cafe and Restaurant provides a safe and comfortable space for players and their families to socialize.Â
The atmosphere the cafe produced might be comparable to the famous bar of Mondstadt, Angel’s Share, an in-game tavern where everyone’s there to simply have fun. Overall, the experience with the cafe left a positive impact on me. While the majority of the food tasted subpar, the community aspect of the cafe—everything from the cosplayers and the merchandise to the decor that ties it all together—acts as the driving force behind this Genshin experience.
While this collaboration is tailored to the average Genshin Impact player, it’s not just for them. The Moon Rabbit Cafe and Restaurant has provided a serene environment even for players’ families to come and check out the place themselves.
It’s such a wonderful sight to see that families are a little bit more accepting of gaming as a hobby and even going as far as coming to the cafe and bonding over Genshin Impact.
