Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait over Pièce Montée's Mont-Blanc

Friday night, I went to Pièce Montée's Mont-Blanc for Saturday, once they confirmed that Saturday they wouldn't be selling it. They open late, so that's still within 24 hours of them putting it on display, which seems reasonable. I mostly carefully walked it back (they do not take it down, just limit its movement by a partition and icepack). My snack instead came from the Marusho, in the form of a Plecia Basque Cheesecake, which was definitely good, unlike my last coffee shop cheesecake.

Saturday, I woke much to early, so I same neighborhood course I mentioned previously, but found another little shop next to Shinanomachi selling little traditional cakes, so the map needed to be revised (the shop is Bunmeidou, and I got their Honey Castella Rolls, which was definitely good, as packaged cakes go).

That being the case, I decided that I should add the various Soga Gakkai buildings, the same as I would if they were religious buildings of other groups, even though this area is their central complex. The streets are public, so it's not really a campus or like a temple grounds, where many building might be assembled. I took a few pictures of obvious candidates for revising the map and then headed to Isetan, where I arrived just before opening and easily got my Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait for a cake-off between two zero-for-one cakes.

Unfortunately, I didn't move the mont-blanc from the chiller before serving (probably should have moved it to the regular part of refrigerator an hour before eating), so it was maybe too firm for the whipped cream to express itself. I just wasn't feeling the need for this to be on the great list, so Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait, which I still think deserves to be on the list easily won. The mont-blanc will get another chance this year, and I'll try to remember to be more careful about the temperature, as appropriate for a cake that depends on whipped cream.

When I was out again, confirmed more Soka Gakkai buildings, I stopped at their souvenir shop, Hakubun Eikōdō, and got a little Shinanomachi Agemochi (fried rice cake), which was good in the standard way.