Cake-off: Paris S'éveille's Giverny over En Vedette's Rocher

Did a cake-off, first going to Paris S'éveille to get Giverny. Only problem is, they were opening late and I arrived early. However, I hadn't done my stretches the day be fore and had no trouble filling a hour hour catching up. There's a little two set sort of park across the street with a phone booth where I could social distance and keep an eye on the door to make sure people didn't line up in front of me, which they didn't. Unfortunately, road vibrates caused layer shifting and scattering of fruit. After bring this home and having lunch with the extra new cake, I went out by En Vedette, also by bicycle and also getting one extra cake: my contribution to reducing unnecessary trips. Again, the road vibration separated layers, in this case the top decoration. No great impact on taste of either, I assume. These were pretty well matched. On the one hand, Rocher is a  fine collection of things I like, as far as being nutty and chocolaty. On the other hand, Giverny offered a different slightly fruity alternative and avoided being over sweet better, I think, so in the end I decided to give it the win.

Paris S'éveille, Tarte Fraisette

Last weekend, went down to Jiyuugaoka by bicycle, which is a mistake as far preserving the cake. As the pictures shows, this Tarte Fraisette did not like the vibration, though jogging is slightly better. I should perhaps give up and use the train, since there probably would not be many other passengers. Anyway, this tart is strawberry and orange compote on a pâte sucrée almond base, where the almond is mixed with cinnamon. I missed this last year, apparently, but was glad to catch it this year, as it was excellent. As I just wrote about them, probably thinking about this cake, they seem to be getting a the hang of fruitier cakes relative to previously, or I'm learning to like them more. I hope to make another visit next week, as I don't think I'm caught up on their new cakes. If the weather is good, I might try to eat outside. This time, I was also getting cake for a cake off so that was not practical.

Citron: Tarte Citron

During last week, I tried a new place on the neighborhood running course (though not the part I was working on practicing at the time), Citron in Minami-Aoyama. Actually, they only have the one cake, Tarte Citron, though they also have pound cake. The Tarte Citron is reasonably good, though not special. It's like a giant lemon bar. So one shop got checked off. This week, I'll stick to priority shops.

Les Cacaos, Ville Franchier

Still a week behind, on the return from PS, I also stopped at Les Cacao again, as I try to catch up on exceptional shops (that are didn't suspend business for a month), and got a 7th new cake. I ate it after neighborhood run that successfully (I think, or at least I've been successful by now) did the new Akasaka west loop, which is going to be part of a 4-loop Nogizaka--Roppongi Sta. clump that's 9+ km, plus access routes, that I've put running together so far. Since I've found flaws in both the Omotesando southeast clump loops, that's still the priority, though I've finished the Shibuya Sta. east and north clumps, meaning I've been spending time (on the ground and in front of the computer) figuring out the Diakanyama area, which is become a 12+ km main loop, a side loops that have also expanded.

Anyway, running, and then cake: Ville Franchier. This is a butter cream cake with almond biscuits and a layer of chocolate down there in the shadows of the bottom. It's basically a marjolaine, perhaps, though I hadn't been thinking that at the time. Anyway, buttercream cakes can be boring, and yet, with the right touch of flavor, such as a little chocolate, they can be great. This one comes qualifies as excellent, which boosts Les Cacaos enough to get them out of the bottom of their shop category. Just three more shops to do (though definitely 1 and maybe 2 are suspected for the state of emergency, but the hotel-based one hopefully is continuing).

Paris S'éveille, Palet d'Or

In the afternoon, I tried going down to Paris S'éveille, as I was thinking they might have a new cake, which have been rare from them, so I've fallen behind in that respect. I went with Palet d'Or, which seem very familiar, as something that I ate in, but I can't find any record of it and the experience wasn't that familiar, so I'm not sure what I'm thinking of. This is a layer of dried fruits and almonds under passion fruit sauce (congealed). I suppose the sauce and the whipped cream on top are what make it a cake versus a cookie, but I'm not going to quibble, as, whatever you call it, it's quite nice. I can say that this is excellent, which usually I can't about their new cakes. They've been playing around with fruitier cakes for a while, but it seems now like they're finally getting the hang of it.

L'Abricotier, Dulcey

Sunday was lots a bicycling to hit a wide spread of shops. I think I ran in the evening, but it's been a while, so I don't actually remember. If I did, it would be neighborhood courses, getting my memory of the revised loops and their clumps confirmed. Anyway, I was busy in the morning, so it was a late start, about 11:30. First I went to L'Abricotier, since are the top challenger to Pierre Hermé, plus they're open. This time I got Dulcey. I did a search on my phone there, because I was surprised that I had no record of having had this cake before, but I believe it now. It's been a standard as long as I can remember. I've avoided until now because the main feature is banana, which doesn't impress me, though as I think about cakes I've had, there have only been a few banana ones and only one that would put me off them as a whole (banana and chocolate). Anyway, there were probably other flavors, and the typical banana flavor was not strong, which suited me, but it was certainly sweet in a fruity way. I'm surprised, but in the end I have to say this was excellent, so they remember a challenger to moving up a spot. 

Pierre Gagnaire, Cheese Cake à la Fraise

Last weekend, as well as a getting a cake for the cake-off, I got one new cake for Pierre Gagnaire, which is challenging the bottom of the quite exceptional shops for a position there. I got Cheesecake (or maybe it was Fromage) aux Fraises, I'll say, but I should check next weekend. I ate this after some running down around Minami-Aoyama on neighborhood course loops. I added a couple sites in the process, a cafe with a sign for take-out cake (as well as closed for the declaration of emergency) and a vegan shop/restaurant with ads for vegan sweets that might have just been closed but it was night during an emergency. As cheesecake goes, this cake is very mild, to the point that I wasn't sure there was going to be any cheese taste at all, but then it cake. Still, pretty minimal. However, there is a lot of strawberry compote in the little ball and I decided in the end that I could credit for being excellent.

Cake-off: Pierre Gagnaire's Mousse aux Chocolat et Yuzu over Musée du Chocolat Théobroma's San Juaquin Dos

It was a wet day that got wetter, so just walking during the day. Last week's cake-off was a third round against one-and-one cakes. First, before the season runs out (if there is a season) I got Mousse aux Chocolat et Yuzu again from Pierre Gagnaire. For the other cake, the rarely visited Musée du Chocolat Théobroma, which has one worthwhile cake that I've found, their signature chocolate cake, San Juaquin Dos.

Unfortunately, I'll have to admit, it turned out that I wasn't much in the mood for chocolate. Nevertheless, these were great cakes, so I did enjoy eating them. Neither is a top chocolate cake, but they each represent a type. In this case, maybe just because I was looking for something beyond chocolate, I had to go with the mousse cake. In some ways, the San Juaquin Dos is pretty plain, but it has a kind of advantage in that way, so I'm not willing to give it up. Still, with two losses, it will have to wait until next year to get it's fourth round.

Albida Lounge, Chocolat Fondant

Tried a new shop as my second/last weekday cake. This was a spontaneous decision, though I had noticed the shop before, but the next neighbor running course shops was planned to be Citron, on the Minami-Aoyama loop in the Gaien clump, both of which I'm up to date on. But I was doing the Minami-Aoyama--Nishi-Azabu on the other side of the main north-south road and noticed that the hotel lounge/cafe had cake, so I went in there, and sure enough they have a few types and if was available for take-out (at least during corona times). This is Albida Lounge, for the record. I went with the Chocolat Fondant, which came with whipped cream, though I didn't take good care of it. The cake isn't cheap but pretty large as fondant go and quite a fine texture, so I think it's reasonable to call it excellent. That's not enough to take me back immediately, but its enough for it to keep its place in the fine shops long enough to get a second try when I get around to getting second cakes from similar shops.

As a result, I had to revised the loop. Actually, this shop is on an outside corner with sites on the two interior sides, so I had to make the block its own loop, but the clump stays together. I didn't feel a need to re-practice the whole think, just this slit loop.

Actually, I had one more weekday thing, but it counts of a pastry. Friday at lunch time, I got an Apple Pie from Yatsudoki in Shinjuku 1, on the grounds that it looks like a Chauson aux Pommes. It really is more of an apple pie. On the plus side, the inside is well cooked. On the minus side, though it might because I heated it up (3 minutes at 120 degC), but it seemed overly greasy. It was good, but it doesn't give me an incentive to explore there further.

Pierre Hermé, Bayadère

For last week, I had three cakes left for the weekdays, but didn't expect to find that many. However, if I wanted to try a lot of new shops, there are places out there on my neighborhood running map, such as this cafe, which was open close to 9 pm in Roppongi, with an outdoor cake case and a "take-out" sign, so it gets added to the map. There are still closer in ones open on the neighborhood course.

One major player that is still open until 7 pm is Pierre Hermé, which I owed a cake from a cake-off win a while back, so I got something new, Bayadère. This is lime in the white chocolate with strawberry and rhubarb compote, passion fruit with lime gelatin and a sablé breton base. It's definitely good and interesting, but perhaps I should have gone for the new cheesecake, though I can't regret taking a gamble on something more ambitiously different. Among my supposedly superb shops, this one is most precarious, so a couple challengers from the quite exceptional list once again have a chance to overtake it (not that either has enough new cakes to match it anyway).

Très Calme, Chocolat Épice

Last week, working through the list of exceptional shops that I'm ready to get a cake from and are open, I cam back from En Vedette by way of Sengoku in Bunkyou-ku and visited Très Calme. No pastries now, but open for take-out cake. I went with the Chocolat Épice, as it looked interesting. I'm not exactly sure what spices were involved, but they seemed to be the usual things you would have in a spice cake, even if spice cakes aren't usually tart-type cakes. Definitely good and it was definitely interesting as a change.

En Vedette: Tarte Fraise

At the same time I was securing a cake for a cake-off, after running to the main shop in Miyoshi, I got one new cake, since this shop is challenging to rise to a quite exceptional position. This time, I went with a cake quite similar to last time, in that it is pistachio and strawberry, but this time it's Tarte Fraise, where the base is a pistachio tart, and of course the cream above is pistachio. Usually strawberry tarts are custard tarts, but I appreciate this much better and can say it was excellent.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Violette over En Vedette's Rocher

Last Sunday, having caught up the previous week one week late on Saturday (where the week runs Saturday to Friday), I started the next week with a third-round cake-off between two undefeated cakes, the recent Rocher by En Vedette, and Violette by Jean-Paul Hévin, which had been sleeping in my freezer since a week ago, waiting for a competitor. I assume all the Jean-Paul Hévin shops are closed by now, and that at least the Tokyo one's were closed by last weekend, so the latter cake is somewhat a miracle. It also tastes like a miracle: the perfect mousse layer cake, accented with fruit. The Rocher really has more going on, as far as textures, and I'll be giving it a fourth round soon, but this JPH cake remains undefeated. Too made I'll probably have to wait until next year before a fourth round (I'm hoping that I don't have to wait until next year for all other cakes, or I hope they expand their capacity to make cakes for delivery, since their Marco Polo was sold out last I looked).

Cake-off: En Vedette's Rocher over Pierre Gagnaire's Mousse au Chocolat et Yuzu

Saturday late afternoon, I went out intending to see if any shops on the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama loop that I wanted to hit were open (none were), but before I got that far, I ran into a new shop in Naitou-machi,

'A'ala Herbalbar Yotsuya, that was selling baked goods through a plastic screen, so I got what they were calling a Strawberry Scone, or at least I'm interpreting what they showed me as saying that. It's not particularly scone-shaped, but the structure is basically correct, except it's also got frosting, so it's pretty far from a scone. It was good, though, and I wish them luck. It means I have to expand my Naitou-machi loop to include them, but it doesn't effect the total distance of the clump much. It's on the way to lots of places, so I just have to remember to do it when I'm going or coming back from that direction.

I only ran about half of a long afternoon, walking the rest, as I was adding pictures for mostly convenience stores, coffee shops, and drug stores that to the running map. I started with Harajuku, went down to Shibuya Station and then worked back up Aoyama-doori until Aoyama 1-choume.

The main event of the day, and the reason I visited two shops, besides wanting new cakes from both, was for a cake-off between two recently discovered cakes that won their first rounds: Pierre Gagnaire's Mousse au Chocolat et Yuzu and En Vedette's Rocher. Even though one was mousse, I found that the cooler was too much for it, so I set both aside at halfway through and gave them another 5 minutes before I finished, which made both just right. Still both great cakes, but the Rocher has more flavors textures going on, so it gets the win, even though the chocolate mousse is a great presentation and I don't get tired of it (which is good, because I plan a 3rd round with it soon).

En Vedette, Saint-Honoré Rouge Pistache

As the noon run on Saturday, I went out to En Vedette in Koutou-ku (which Shibuya Scramble Square is shut down), looking around and taking photos of sites on future neighborhood running course loops in the areas northeast from Yotsuya Station. I took the longer route rather than go past the main Mitsukoshi in Nihonbashi, though that is shut down as well. I came back by train, which had about three people per car, so I felt relatively safe. Also, I'm now running wearing a mask, since someone ahead of me might have coughed, though I also avoid trailing in people's wake.

As a new cake, I got the Saint-Honoré Rouge Pistache, which combines a lot of things I like. Red fruit, not so much, but a little fruit goes with choux pastry better than heavy things like chocolate, as well as being a much better accent for pistachio. In this case, the cream puffs are filled with fruit sauce rather than pistachio, which I might not have chosen, but the balance was fine. The pistachio cream was more whipped cream than the thicker paste I was expecting, but again, that might be for the best, this was excellent. This shop continues to impress me and should easily reach the quite exceptional shop group, even if I'm going to have to have to get further from my preference in their line-up. Unlike Pierre Gagnaire, their residential base area lets them have a full line-up. They recognized me, of course, from my trips to Shibuya and thanked me for the visit.

Pierre Gagnaire, La Fraise

Get up early due to not getting back to sleep and wet off to do the National Art Center clump of my neighborhood running course, which stretches from Aoyama 1 Stn. to the east and west most exits of Roppongi Stn. From the last, I made a side trip to Pierre Gagnaire, so it was a gentler trip home, which I reached a little before 09:00. I was success at the clump, which is 5.452 km by itself. I still have to do the farthest (but smallest) loops clockwise again.

After a carrot (as something to hold down a spike in blood sugar), I had La Fraise, which is a shape cake. This is obviously a solid shell. Inside is mostly very light strawberry mousse, with a little bit of custard and strawberry (I'm not sure whether the custard is needed to project the mousse from the strawberry). The "leaf" is pretty gummy, so probably best to eat it separately, unless you like that kind of thing. It was very nice, if light and a little hard to each, since the shell breaks apart (I assume it's white chocolate based). Still, a definitely good cake. 

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Strawberry Tiramisu

Monday, I didn't work late and ran to Ginza Mitsukoshi, where I didn't find what I was looking for (though I forgot then to look at Ladurée, so I'll need to visit their Aoyama shop on the weekend, since everywhere else is completely closed), and headed over the Foiorentina Pastry Boutique, working on the cakes from quite exceptional shops. They're in a hotel, so I have to pass a body temperature test, but they let me into the lobby. At the cake counter, there was not a huge selection, but they were open. I got the Strawberry Tiramisu, which is a standard I've often seen. I'll say that it was good, but not more than expected. Sort of like soft cheese (compared to cakes in general) with strawberry flavoring.

Tuesday, I went to Isetan the last day before department stores shut down, so almost everything was sold out. I got the Florentin Nature from Sadaharu Aoki, and this was great, for what's basically a cookie. I haven't said that about any other cookie, so I'll need to keep sampling there from the category, but I'll need to do it at he Marunouchi shop on a weekend or holiday if I want to do it over the next month.

Pomology, Pomology Strawberry and Tart Melon

Last Friday, probably as my last department store cake for a while, I got two cakes for two from the just-opened pomology. One is a signature cake, Pomology Strawberry, and the other was a Tarte Melon. Both of these feature high-end brand fruits (one assumes from the price), though I'm no connoisseur of fruit, so even though these were both good cakes, I didn't find them so special.

Can't remember what my run was back then, so I'll say that I've clear revised neighborhood course clumps up through the Jinguumae central clump, which gets me 40.3 km of clumps. I've got some of the individual loops beyond that done, though most of them need revision.

Yoshinori Asami: Caramel Pomme

Last Thursday I caught Yoshinori Asami and got the Caramel Pomme, which is a modern shaped cake, though it got a little mangled on the wrong side, so I took the picture from the top. The bottom is an apple tart and the main part is caramel mousse with apple compote. I haven't had much luck with these in the past, but this one was definitely excellent, so Yoshinori Asami stays as a exceptional shop.