I have a little fantasy about taking a job in Midtown, not so much because I want to spend all day overlooking Bryant Park or Times Square, but because if I did, I would be close enough to eat lunch every day at Café Zaiya. I imagine myself wedged into the tiny dining area at the front of the shop, surrounded on all sides by Asian tourists, and even my claustrophobic self backs down when I remind it that I’d be eating chili ebi, yakisoba sandwiches, and katsu bowls. Find the food and the job will follow, is what my stomach keeps telling me.

In the meantime, I have been visiting Café Zaiya on weekends or in the late afternoons with HungryMan, Lady Film Editor, and well, pretty much all of our other friends. The verdict is a unanimous thumbs-up from all camps. Some people prefer the baked goods– Café Zaiya makes its own impressive selection of sweet treats and replaces them with fresh items throughout the day. Keep that in mind if there is a particular goodie you’re after, as the current inventory changes often. When Lady Film Editor and I visited recently, we ate only sweets: I ordered the yomogo pan, a porous and spongy cake infused with very strong green tea and topped with sweetened red beans. The yomogo pan takes the flavor experience of green tea ice cream and amplifies it by a few orders of magnitude, making it a perfect companion for a cup of milky coffee (and the coffee here is good, so don’t overlook it). Lady Film Editor’s éclair was a very traditional French-style paté-choux pastry, filled with a brilliantly white vanilla cream. Both snacks were fantastic.

On that same visit, I picked up a rice-filled omelette for HungryMan (who had missed lunch and was waiting, starving, at home). Omu-rice is exactly what it looks like: a thin envelope of loosely cooked eggs surrounding pan-fried short grain rice, seasoned with onion, peppers, and a little ketchup. There’s more ketchup on top, in case you missed it in the rice. It is simple food, but very satsifying. It is also one of perhaps 20 different lunch items that Café Zaiya serves, not even counting the chili shrimp, fried oysters, octopus patties, and sushi kept in the deli cases. We especially like the fried fish and pork bento boxes, the mackerel noodle bowls, and the chicken cutlet sandwiches.

But more than any of those foods, we are madly and passionately in love with the yakimochi. These little discs are made from pounded glutinous rice dough, flecked with black sesame seeds, and filled with a velvety sweet white bean paste. They are grilled or baked (Café Zaiya seems to bake some of them) until they are just barely golden brown, and if you are very lucky, sold warm. I handed a very skeptical HungryMan his first toasty yakimochi just a few weeks ago, and after taking a small bite out of it, he moaned with pleasure. I completely understand why– this one dessert provides so many taste and texture sensations that it takes a first-timer completely by surprise. It is chewy and smooth, grainy, soft, slightly crunchy, mellow, and sweet, all at once, and all in perfect concert. Yakimochi alone is reason enough to stop in to Café Zaiya, but if you happen to miss it, don’t despair– eat something else. You’ll be back.

Café Zaiya, 18 East 41st Street (between 5th and Madison Avenues), 212-779-0600

[NB: Yes, there is a Beard Papa in Café Zaiya, but it deserves its own post.]