Rire Ginza: Griotte Cherry and Pistachio Fondant Chocolat & Baked Apple Mille-Feuille

Despite the title, the most significant find was perhaps my taking advantage of a Monday off to visit the Morihan shop in Sendagaya, very close to the base of my running map, so a priority (though I've since added even closer ones that I haven't finished getting to).

This seems to be half office for the Tokyo branch of a tea distributor, which explains why they keep office hours, closed weekends and holidays and closing at 18:00. I was there because they had enough snake-time things to deserve to be on the running map, even if they're usually closed when I'm running. They had chocolate, but I went with Matcha Dacquoise, I didn't expect a lot, but actually for once I could understand the appeal of dacquoise cookies: this was excellent. I should remember to add that I was over there working on the neighborhood running course clumps in that neighborhood. I successfully did the Kitasandou east clump and the Sendagaya Elementary School clump, neither of which is much larger long than 2 km, which fit in the amount of time I had before going out for lunch.

Wanted to visit Rire Ginza, maybe based on the chef's reputation. However, I'm all about cake and this was strictly café desserts, so I probably should select my locations more carefully. Still, the lunch and the desserts were good, and the location was convenient for us. I got the most cake-like thing, the Griotte Cherry and Pistachio Fondant Chocolat. It was good, but definitely too little and subtle for my tastes, which says more about me than the shop.

The other dessert was Baked Apple Mille-Feulle, which is basically an kind of apple pie with ice cream on top. That said, it was definitely good and I liked it more. The apple had more texture than a tatin, but fit the dessert and the cidre sabayon sauce worked well to combine the ice cream, fruit, and pastry.

I'll also include here that the Match Chocolat, made by Hokkaido Carmelite monks, which was excellent. Maybe I'll get the white chocolate next time, from San Paolino near Yotsuya Station (because it's near Sophia University).

Finally, running news for Monday, at night I tried to do the Akasaka--Azabudai--Roppongi--Toramon loop counterclockwise and realized (1) I didn't know where to turn at the far east corner, (2) I hadn't followed the map previously, when I thought I did it clockwise, and (3) the map wasn't followed, because it didn't follow a legitimate route. This entire loop may collapse, which isn't shocking since I've lost a major interior street to a construction project; I not sure whether there is a way to unravel this. Probably I'll just do a cheat and add a loop that overlaps a bit, since otherwise, it's going to be a huge ugly revision and I'll have to revise again when they finish the project (March 31, 2023). Anyway, I have bigger problems on the west side, that I discovered Tuesday.