Ladurée: Afternoon Tea Set

Got the full afternoon tea set from Ladurée at Ginza Mitsukoshi. I might have done that somewhere, some time before, but I don't remember where, not Ladurée, or when, not in the last few years. The sandwiches were fine. The meringue was fine. The bonbon chocolate (that I had) was fine. Tea seemed fine, though I didn't have much and I don't remember which one, except that it was one of the classics (the first choice was gone). What I had a lot of was the Chocolat Chaud, which was excellent, but not pictured. There were four macarons: the standards were Vanille and Pistache, which were both excellent, though I liked the pistachio more, the seasonal was Fleur D'Oranger, and the special was Ichigo (strawberry), the latter both being good; note that all were judged based on limited experience of macarons in general compared to cake and only half a macaron each to go by.

There were two cakes. One was a standard for the line-up, the Plaisir Sucré, which is a milk chocolate and praliné over hazelnut dacquoise, specifically praliné "crispy", milk chocolate, milk chocolate ganache, and milk chocolate chantilly. I didn't dig into it too quickly, so it reached a high enough temperature that the sweetness was high, which was what it was designed for. I'm a little suspicious of such a blatant appeal to my sweet tooth, but it seemed successful, so I'll tentatively say it was great. I expect that will get quickly tested in a cake-off. The other cake was Saint-Honoré Pistache. That was definitely good, but the pastry was a flaky pie pastry (versus other pie pastry), not choux, which surprised me. That and the butter cream pistachio frosting gave this a sort of American to me. It's not really a direction that I want my saint-honoré to go.