Viron, Foret-noire

Thursday was a public holiday, so I planned visits to two quite fine shops. On the way, though, I stopped at Viron in case they had new cakes, having in mind that St. Valentines Day might bring something new to the slowly varying lineup, which it did. I decided after some hesitation to go ahead and get both cakes from Viron, leaving the quite fine shops for another day, even though one cake might drop Viron low enough in ranking that I wouldn't necessary need another. I have no regrets. The first cake (choosing and eating) was Foret-noire (as written on the card), which is chocolate and cherry mousse and some other mousse that I'm not sure about, maybe custard and chocolate. Anyway, the cake is quite creamy yet fairly stable for mousse. Overly, it gets a nice balance between chocolate and cherry that works better than another other such cake I've had (noting that I'm not big on cherry and chocolate). I won't hesitate to say that it was excellent. 

Bien-Étre, Mangu

Sunday afternoon, went out by bicycle to see what was available at shops, as well as do some cross-training. The first stop was PS, where there was a line outside and nothing new visible through the window, so I didn't wait. No surprise there. The second stop was Bien-Étre, where I wasn't expecting anything, but mango had come into season, which included Mangu, so I used up my week's cake allotment. This cake was excellent, with the base sable's strong flavor memorable. BE remains at the top of the quite exceptional shops.

At the beginning of the trip, I stopped at Nikka Block Cafe and got their sable. I didn't stop and eat it until just after buying the above cake, but I really needed it. It was excellent, so I should try their eat-in cake some time. They still close fairly early for weekdays, but they are a neighborhood priority. Meant to do a long run in the evening, scaled it down, then found that I could keep to the route, so I gave up pretty early. My muscles felt energetic, but mentally perhaps I had had enough exercise for the day. If only rotating images was still an option with Blogger (or my phone or Google wouldn't automatically rotate them versus how I took them to begin with).

Dalloyau, Trois Chocolat

Wednesday July 1st was the only weekend new cake, and even that was somewhat of a cheat. SA has been introducing a lot of new cakes that don't really match their classics and slipped enough that it was Dalloyau's chance to challenge, based on several good cakes from years ago, before who ever is in charge now. Anyway, Dalloyau got a new cake, which was Trois Chocolat. Now, other than the name and design on top, it might be exactly the same as the old L'Echiquier, which was great, though never won a cake-off in two rounds. This was also great, as a creamy milk chocolate cake. This is enough to put it at the top of the superb shops and maintain it's challenge of Sadaharu Aoki. Sneaky, but successful, and I'm happy to finally have a stable new great cake for cake-offs.