Frédéric Cassel: Azalea

Started out with 1.85 km fast, and then 3.6 km very fast, followed by 626 m racing speed, after which, Ginza got in the way (if I measure from Yamanote line). From there to Ginza Mitsukoshi and back to the Lawson 100 in Yotsuya along Shinjuku Street was a slow 4.76 with cake.  So about 10.8 km of running today, giving me a 6-day total of 74.1 km, which leaves almost the same amount to run tomorrow and still say within the 85 km budget, so enough enough to get to any priority sites (even if I wanted to go to Frédéric Cassel again tomorrow, I don't need to stop at the Lawson 100 again: I'm stocked up on tofu and yogurt). Probably, I'll try to do a short run and see if I can get out of work in time to make a 8 km to a 8 pm closing shop feasible.

At Frédéric Cassel, I got the Azalea for 810 yen. This is yuzu flavored milk chocolate mousse, coated in chocolate, with yuzu and banana compote. On top, is biscuit, rather than the bottom, which I haven't seen before. They had this last time I visited, but it just didn't sound like a good idea. Actually, though, it was great. At least, I like chocolate (though I've often been disappointed in it), and the fruit was a great balance. As always, since I'm testing this out as a great shop, I want to think that this is great cake and it did not give me any reason not to think so, so I'll go with that. Certainly, I don't have any ideas for better chocolate, yuzu, and banana cake and I would recommend this to anyone who doesn't hate chocolate or fruit (neither the yuzu nor the banana were distinctive flavors, though the fruit was definitely effective, so disliking either of those would perhaps not mean this cake was bad for that person). That's 4 great cakes of 5, so I'm going to have to say that this is the eighth definitely great shop of Tokyo by my standard.