Jean-Paul Hévin: Goa

I'm behind so, the cake is from Wednesday. I went first to Jean-Paul Hévin at Isetan, where they have Goa from this month, which I don't think I've ever had. Backing up, Tuesday, I tried to do a 21 km run but got lost trying to save time and once I figured out where I was and what I needed to do to get on track, I didn't have the time or energy to make up for it, so I decided to head home and make it a 16 km run (at about 9 km/h average), though I stopped at Dalloyau and got a Pain au Chocolat, which despite the late hour and the poor conditions of me eating it (in a park), was still definitely excellent. This is basically like a very loose croissant, in the sense of being flaky all the way through rather than being bread-like on the inside, in texture and taste, despite the difference in shape, with line of chocolate down the axis.

The run for Wednesday was up to Yasukuni Avenue to a closed shop (I forgot and hadn't checked their closed day) and then down to Tokyo Midtown, where I checked what special cakes Sadaharu Aoki might have there, though I had also intended to check Toshi Yoroizuka, but forgot. Total, it was about 8 km again at 9 km/h. I definitely need to change my running and cake-buying for the long runs so I force myself to rest afterward, but it's hard to balance my different running and cake objectives. Anyway, this week, I needed more rest, but I'm busy Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday, so I'm rested up now.

Goa from Jean-Paul Hévin was great, though I did not come to that conclusion quickly. It's been a while since I evaluated a new cake from them and they are kind of a special case. This cake is chocolate mousse, Darjeeling mousse, yuzu flavored biscuit, and pecan nougatine. My first impression was that it was subtle for my tastes, and so not my favorite from them, but definitely good. As I progressed, it was clearly excellent and I appreciated the difference. Afterward, I decided that it was great, in that I definitely wanted to have it again, which is the real test, and that I would not have as much trouble identifying it as great if I avoided comparing it to other Jean-Paul Hévin cakes. Even so, it really is great even among their and appreciate their variety (though only among chocolate cakes), and wouldn't have trouble choosing them if I could only have cake from one place, though the variety is necessarily spread out over the year, so my cake eating is a little too frequent to be satisfied.