REVIEW: 42618 Heartlake City Café

[Pchan1983]

Here is my review on LEGO Friends 42618 Heartlake City Café:

THE GOOD:

• From the front, it looks great with interesting new ways to build various part of the cafe.
• An interior that replicate a modern cafe well with some very detailed kitchen set up.
• Goes well with 42606 Mobile Bakery Food Cart.

THE NOT SO GOOD:

• I wish it has a roof.
• Missed opportunity to be able to integrate with the Heartlake City Community series.

I own 42606 Mobile Bakery Food Cart, when this set is announced I immediately noticed the logo and thought this one looks nice.  And this set does looks nice indeed.   It's a corner type small building with an interesting colour pallet.  The exterior featuring some refreshing use to pieces that often only utilised in a more castle setting.  And mixing with the windows makes this look very good exterior wise.  It also features some of the more interesting ways to place tiles despite it limited space and the angles entrance.  The Interior is also very detailed.  It really captures the vibes of modern cafes.  But I'm more impressed with all the little builds at the counter & kitchen.  The contact less payment machine is really cool.  This set also comes with a scooter with a new colour.  Minidolls come with a new head gear, beanie with hair exposed which recently has a new colour variant from the JAWS set.  Beatriz also features the same uniform in 42606, and this really enhance the value of this set as now the small set can play a bigger part now.  The only thing I wish LEGO could have done is having an actual roof.  I know it's to enhance playability and keep the set at certain price point but still it would be nice to have a roof.  The other thought I have was, it will be even greater if this can also integrate with the Heartlake City Community Kitchen and Centre, but then again by doing that could have shoot the price of this set up.  I got this set with 20% off which made it a very good deal and the set is actually pretty good if you want something fun and look nice but not perfect.