Showing posts with label 13th cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 13th cake. Show all posts

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Très Calme, Chic

Last Monday was a holiday, Coming of Age Day. I visited another exceptional shop, this time Très Calme. The new cake I chose was Chic, which is passion fruit and, I think, apricot. Though I haven't been bothering to report about pastries lately, but I want to say that the I'll mention that I also got a Kouign Amann as my first fresh pasty from there and I thought it was maybe great, being of the same form as Paris S'eveille, which has been my favorite. I look forward to visiting there further for pastries. I ran and walked there, but walked back, and not by the shortest route, so I got a good amount of exercise.

Back to the cake Chic, the fruit part manages to be firm without being stick-gelatinous or runny and the fruits harmonize into mellow but satisfying flavor. The texture along with the flavor make this an excellent cake for me, so Très Calme remain in good standing among the exceptional shops. This was my best new cake of the long holidays. 

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Pierre Gagnaire, Short Cake

Sunday, I started with a run down to Pierre Gagnaire's, getting a couple missing missing photos for sites on revised parts of the neighborhood running course that I haven't confirmed yet. I walked back with the last new cake I expect to get from them this month, though I should check in on their webpage, such as it is, since Tokyo is loosening up (for good or bad), so they might expand or revise their line-up earlier rather than later, though I'm thinking their original idea was to do the strawberry cakes through the end of May anyway.

I went back out almost immediately, this time by bicycle (which ended up being about 2.5 hours total). I first went over to B-E, where their was a line and I decided I didn't want to spend time finding out that they didn't have anything new when there were other places to go. Not sure whether I'll feel differently next weekend, but I'll trying going their first and get their a little earlier (plus be satisfied with other places on that side of town). Next I doubled back and went to Sadaharu Aoki in Marunouchi again. Their cake selection is limited, but they were featuring a wide variety of pastries, so I got the Croissant d'Amonde, I'll guess, since I'd had the other three types of croissant, and they were excellent to great. This one was not soggy, which was good, and there was liberal use of almond liquor, I think. I can say was excellent.

From there I went to two shops, which I could get new cakes at, so success. At home, I finally had the first cake after lunch, which was the (strawberry) Short Cake. I struggle with this, because it's not a type of cake I've very interested in, so I'm not sure what make it better or worse. There are hundreds of varieties of strawberries, and I have no idea which goes best on this kind of cake, so I can't really take that into consideration. In the end, I decided that this was excellent: I could recommend it myself and would would enjoy having it again, but it's not a goal.

Sunday, May 3, 2020

En Vedette, Macaron Printemps

Only yesterday, when I was busy in the morning, I did a run out to Miyoshi (where the parks have lots of people, unlike more local parks, which have been taped off) to get a new cake from En Vedette. This time I went for a cake that was actually marked as new, Macaron Printemps, and took the last one on display. We're in the final month of strawberry season, apparently, and strawberries are the most popular fruit (apparently there are more Japanese varieties than any other country's, though China has the biggest production), so no surprise that this is full of strawberries.

Starting with the positive, I walked the cake all the way back, but first had a Pain au Chocolat, also from En Vedette. My breakfast was long before I set out, so I was pretty hungry, which might be why I found this pastry relatively light (so easy to eat), but I believe it was excellent.

Actually, I'm not so hot on this cake. I don't like my macarons too soft, even though that's a deliberate goal for some macaron desserts. The strawberries were fine (I have no idea what variety) and it's reasonable to call it good, but I would steer clear of similar cakes, given a choice. Still, they call all please me and this shop is still in line to be promoted. I'll probably get there back for a new cake.

The running was in the evening, where I finished off confirming my revisions to three of the loops at the corner of Omote-Sandou.