Yu Sasage, Montélimar Noisette

Took a half day off and didn't accomplish many things. That's normal, but I actually did try and did accomplish a few things, as the list of things is pretty long now. However, especially because I mistook the Sadaharu Aoki schedule (there was a new cake today, but only in Nagoya, which gets special treatment from JPH as well), I did go for cake, by bicycle. Yu Sasage is along the borderline between the exceptional and quite exceptional shops and was in line for a cake to try to make the jump. There were a couple promising new cakes, the other a chiboust, but I went with the Montélimar Noisette, which was explained as having Montélimar mousse, which I didn't find informative, since Montélimar is a place name, though I guess I new it was associated with honey. Actually, they were using it to mean honey meringue, which I'll have to try to remember and confirm that as tracking with what other shops mean. Other components are, obviously, hazelnuts, in mousse form, as well as dacquoise. It was definitely good, but is maybe too small and light a cake for me. This might be a case were some fruit would help.

 

Pierre Gagnaire, Green Tea Tart

Last Sunday, I found more cakes than I expected. First, I didn't expect Pierre Gagnaire's bakery and pastry shop in the ANA International Hotel to have any new cakes this month, but they had two among their small line-up, bumping their great chocolate and yuzu mousse cake, though they still had the large version. Everything is also still 20% off. More people over there, though the hotel is not crowded compared to the past. I went with what is easy to guess is the Green Tea Tart. They seem to stick to simple English for the main name; the Japanese description is matcha and blond blond chocolate, which is caramelized white chocolate. Can't say that blond chocolate seems like a good idea to me, even after this excellent tart.

Speaking of matcha, Sadaharu Aoki had another new pastry, and I keep trying them. This time it was Croissant Mâtcha aux Amonde. It was good, but too wet for my tastes in almond croissants. Let me also say, that Blogger updated their editor to some buggy thing hates images (won't let me move them next to text, and trying to makes mousse clicks into backspaces) and labels, which I'm going to have to add after publishing. 

Lenôtre, Schuss Citron

The third cake of last Satuday was from Lenôtre, which saw En Vedette's challenge fade. Also, Ginza Mitsukoshi being closed was not helping. There are three seasonal cakes for the summer, and I took my best shot at Schuss Citron, which is cheese mousse with lemon cream in a 6-layer cake. This was definitely excellent, and really better than I expected, frankly. Lemon as a flavoring to cheesecake is not so innovative, but it works and I liked the cheese mousse and somewhat mild flavor even though I would expect dense cheesecake to suit me best, or at least one that depended more on sugar. Very nice, but still overpriced, so be aware. I look forward to getting another cake from them, maybe next weekend.