Hi guys!
My virgin post here will be a pictorial review of the Lepin 15002, Café Corner. Lepin is a off-brand for Lego and has been springing up quite recently and is VERY aggressive in copying all of Lego’s famed Modular Series, like this café corner, the Bricks Bank, Ghost Busters HQ etc. They have many more in the works even like Paris Restaurant, Grand Emporium, Grand Theatre etc.
There had been doubts about the quality of Off-brands, like the bricks being as sharp as surgeon’s scalpers, or that the locking mechanism of the bricks are weak and do not hold in place etc. However, Lepin bricks are really good, almost to Lego standard, just minus the Lego imprint on the top. The colours are also really good and comparable to Lego.
Let’s start with the review, shall we?
This is the Box… It’s HUGE!
Like 620mm Length…
By 530mm High! It’s massively big, and that’s just the box!
The back of the box shows the possible combinations of multiple sets of Café corners, and also some of the minute beautiful details of this landmarked Lego structure.
It even comes with a carrying handle on the top for easy carrying! I’m not sure if Lego has this though..
The bottom of the box, with the cautionary warnings and the large ‘Made In China’.
Opening the box using the side flaps… Exciting!
So… there are 2 identical sized plain brown boxes inside the large box, containing all the parts inside. Later, I discover that the brown boxes are really good to use a sorting tray (more on that later)
Box 1 parts and the instructional book, along with the green base plate. Notice the parts in their bags are NOT NUMBERED like Lego? We will have a HUGE headache later sorting out the parts we need!
Look carefully at the baseplates… Do you notice… They are… wrapping? Yes they are wrapped upwards. That is sad, but I guess building the structure on it will hopefully help to ‘bend’ it back to shape…
Let’s start building! To be frank, I have not built Lego sets for a LONG LONG time so… this is gonna take a while…
Minifigs first, as with any Lego sets. Lepin’s minifigs are… BAD. seriously, look at that face! They look… alienous.. You would do better with a official original Lego one… And they come totally disassembled, arms and legs and all…
Completed minfigs. Did anyone spot something amiss here?
Yes the hair pieces on the 2 girls, are WRONG! i’m not complaining though, cause these hair pieces are newer and look much better on the girls than the older ones… The man is totally right though, just his smiley face is… well…
Look again at the parts one need to sort, without numbers to help out at all! This is a big no no for Lepin… They are packed according to their part type and lengths, like 4 studs plates together, 5 studs bricks together etc.
Finished with the ground floor tiling. The wrapping of the base plate is even more evident here… I didn’t realise that the words on the left actually spell out ‘Cafe’… Nice touch!
With the walls and steps in… Looking pretty good for now..
The side door upwards to the supposedly hotel entrance…
One thing about Lepin’s glass panels. They are not so clear like Legos. I mean, Lego ones are like crystal clear, but we can see some scratches and such on Lepin ones… But they don’t look all that obvious after installation into their frames…
Like so…
The 1st floor is taking shape with the walls and full height windows in!
There’s a side entrance to the café here, that has its door looking the same as the side panels. neat!
Here we can see more evidently on the poor clear bricks by Lepin. The yellow lanterns are not as bright as Legos…
1st floor completed! That sign on top of the main door is fantastic! I love that build there!
Minifigs lazing around the completed 1st floor of the café corner. That Hotel sign boosts a really strange and interesting build which is not only fun to build, but also looks really nice! It totally portrays the words HOTEL clearly and when light shines through the sign becomes even clearer as they are made with trans red plates. Good build here!
This is the 2nd floor… with a totally different colour scheme than the 1st, more dark reds and whites
I am totally loving the texture that these smooth plates give to the building! It looks really good up close!
The completed 2nd floor with the main window. Looks nice right? Let’s push on!
Stack them up!
3rd floor’s build boosts a lot of plates. The thing here is with the colours of the plates. It look me a while to recognise which are the dark grey ones and which are the black ones they are referring to…
And I present, the completed café corner! Neat ah? However, being Lepin, the bricks are sorted manually unlike Lego, so there is bound to be human errors in parts… Luckily for me, I have no missing parts, but wrong colours ones instead. Like:
The plate on the right corner is supposed to be tan, not dark grey…
This is easily recognisable… The round studs are supposed to be dark grey, not black…
The Red plate is obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time…
And the black 4 stud plate sitting below the eagle statue is supposed to be dark grey…
All in all, my verdict, it is a fantastic set. As Lepin, surely a winner! I mean, unless we are talking about hardcore Lego fans here, no one will notice they are not! Given the price of this is like a faction of the Lego Café corner’s ORIGINAL price, it truly is value for money. A set that is great to own, build and display for those who couldn’t bear paying the crazy inflated price of the original Lego one, like me!
Hope you enjoyed the read!
Cheers.
I have original Lego sets and compatible lego sets from Cogo, etc.
Is Lepin brick to loose?
Or it’s quite good?
Hey Andy, the bricks are as good and are compatible with Lego
Nice review!!!