Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Tarte au Chocolat over Limevert's Pruneau,

Rainy and a little cold today, but not enough that I needed more than a windbreaker and a wide hat. Wanted to do a cake-off with Jean-Paul Hévin's Tarte au Chocolat today, since it's only available this month and I don't want to wait until the last minute (next weekend, is definitely out), but was not sure what I would be able to match it with, so I had some back-ups in mind. It's 12+ km and I kept it fairly slow, on the low end of 9 km/h, because I might end up at 30+ km if Pruneau was not available at P. Limevert. Their site is fairly detailed and it was not listed, but I could not remember whether their site is reliable. Apparently it isn't, or I'm not at reading information from it, which amounts to the same thing for me, except I could do something about the latter. I was of two minds, apparently: I was anxious approaching the shop, worry that they would not have it, and yet I felt disappointed that I was getting what I wanted (otherwise, it would have been a longer additional run to Les Cacao, with Bubo Barcelona as the next back-up). 

This is the second time that I rated a cake from Limevert great when I had it in the shop but could not finding anything special about it at home. As always, I'm not sure whether it is the change in my condition or the change in the cake's condition (maybe I should have let it warm up more from the refrigerator). Anyway, I'm happy that Tarte au Chocolat was still great. I hope I get it match it against another chocolate tart next year (I've had other great ones, but not ones that I know are available now). If other shops disappoint me, I might be back there, and I'll eat in again. For now, though, they get demoted to Excellent and I am tentatively promoting Bien Etre and 14 Juillet Tokyo to Quite Excellent. It leaves the Excellent group a little under, but the Quite Good group is too tangled up to promote any of them yet and too unimportant (I'm after great cake). Maybe after I finish topping up the local Excellent shops, if too many crash and burn. 

Yeah, finally about to be caught up on the blog. I want to get something from the visiting shop at Isetan tomorrow, but I should skip cake a couple days, for among other reasons, to get a couple non-cake things from JPH for their two cake-off wins.