Rue de Passy, Éclair Caramel

From their last cafe-off win, I owed Rue de Passy another visit, so I was there August 14th and picked up their Éclair Caramel, which worked out well, since it was excellent.

Aigre-Douce, Mousse Chocolat Framboise

 This is going to be really short. I went for a new cake to Aigre-Douce because its caramel tart won a cake-off. I've had one other perhaps great cake from there, which I've never seen again, and a couple excellent cakes, and a couple good cakes. The other four were all just ok. I got the Mousse Chocolat Framboise, and this makes a fifth ok cake. The chocolate mousse is inside a sponge exterior, which is a terrible idea. Plus, too much raspberry for me. So soft cake which adds no texture other than to destroy the mousse effect, which is anyway already pretty destroyed by raspberry that includes seeds. And yet, I might be back there in another year if their great cake wins again. I should say, though, that their pastries seem pretty top class, even if I can't understand the appeal of most of their cakes.

 

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.

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.

Lenôtre: Tour Eiffle Fraise

Tuesday, I was feeling a little sore and the weather was poor, so I went by bicycle to get cake from Lenôtre at the Ginza Mitsukoshi. I avoided the glass desserts by trying another red winter variation on one of their standard cakes, in this case a strawberry version of their caramel cake. The Tour Eiffle Fraise. I'm not a big fan of strawberry in particular, but it seems like an improvement over the regular chocolate version, or at least a nice variation. It was definitely good, though one could reasonably want more from the price. This shop still remains at the top of the exceptional shops, so it will likely get promoted. There are a still a couple glass desserts to try. Also, there is a winter version of their Plaisir that wasn't that much different from the original, which was just good, so I'm hoping something else will turn up. They should at least come up with something special for Valentine's Day, though I'm sure they'd rather sell chocolates.