Amitié, Gateau au Chocolat

Top of the list of quite fine shops to visit for a fourth cake was Amitie up in Tsukijimachi. Most of their selection was tartelettes with different toppings that looked more like something from a bakery, not that what I choose was different in that respect, Gateau au Chocolat. This is fairly dry, but not inappropriately so, café-style cake, which is appropriate, since their were young couples inside eating in, making me think I should have spent more time waiting outside (but I didn't know one other customer was going to tie up all three of the staff). However, it wasn't better than good, so this shop is likely to get cut from the quite fine group and not visited again (but still a fine shop).

Cake-off fail: Fraisier and Rhône-Alpes

I got Frédéric Cassel's Fraisier on its last day (they volunteered, since I keep asking for it even when its not in display, now that I've learned that they keep things in the back for later) but made the mistake of getting Rhône-Alpes from Amitié. Early on in the first round (I'm not sure when I stopped, but certain by early this year), I only removed things from the great list if my next evaluation was only Good. Cakes who got a second evaluation of Excellent, got marked as Semigreat and kept. This was one of those, so I'm not going to count it. I'm willing to call it excellent, but I'm just not that interested in classic chocolate cake, with sponge and fronting layers, with or without whipped cream on top. So I'll just have to watch for Fraisier to show up again, hopefully next year, to do its second round. Still, I got to eat some excellent a great cake, so I'm not too disappointed.

Cake-off: Classic Chocolat over Rhône-Alpes

Yesterday, I tried to catch Plaisir at home, which is apparently impossible. Since I was so close, I tried La Base Secrète du GAMIN and found out that Wednesday was its closed day, which is good to know and information that was not available from my other sources. I chose to swing back through Hikarie at Shibuya Station for research purposes rather than go somewhere new for cake, such as Lui's cafe. About 16 km at 10 km/h. So that left me down one cake, meaning today I could do cake-off.

I thought I was going to get cake at Jean-Paul Hévin, but apparently White Day rules still apply and there was a huge line at Isetan. Since I already reserved a Classic Chocolate from Atelier Kohta and needed to get it by 8 pm, I didn't stick around. Instead, I went to Amitié, which is within 400 m of Atelier Kohta, and got the Rhône-Alpes and took both home before going out again for some non-cake errands (well, mainly I needed a new fastener for my running backpack, which is related to cake). Another 10 km at almost exactly 10 km/h average, despite the kills and cake-running.

These were both cakes from small shops that I've not visited so much but made a strong impression at the time. I've had a lot of chocolate cakes since then, though, so maybe I wouldn't rate either as great now, but they are still definitely excellent. The Classic Chocolate has layers of chocolate whipped cream, as well as the whipped cream on top between chocolate biscuit, whereas the Rhône-Alpes has meringue tubes on top which, I still think are nice, and ganache, maybe, between thicker biscuit layers, . But I have to give this match to the Classic Chocolate: I'm warming to whipped cream over time. Actually, I've only had one other cake from Atelier Kohta, so a third cake would level it up with it's neighbor Amitié, which I'm not quite ready to drop from the excellent list, although it probably will end up sliding down to a quite good list eventually, when I get around to needing that. All depends on several newer shops, of course.

Amitié: Mon Régal

6 km/h walking turned out to be too much. Little surprised I was better enough to go out today, just barely, but stuck to 5 km/h for about 6.5 km, with a pause in the middle for cake at Amitié (you can eat in until 8 pm). Looks like that's as fast as I'll be going for a while.
Cake was the Mon Régal for 470 yen, which is definitely excellent. Like a well-cooked brownie (not burnt, but crispy/dry, and sugary) on a butter tart with a little raspberry, like 1 mm, and even less chocolate ganache to hold it in place. You can see what I assume is flakes from freeze-dried raspberries on top. Marked as a chef's favorite. I'd like to make it. Great balance between the raspberry and chocolate. I'll include photos of the shop, although there is not much to see at night.

Amitié: Fraise Fraiche

Rainy evening, but didn't go far, just Amitié around Kagurazaka. Ate in, and let the rain thin out. Not many choices today, though. I asked for a recommendation, so I choose the Fraise Fraîche, which is strawberry short cake. I'm not that into strawberry short cake, but it was good and I was okay with it as a change. At only 390 yen, it's a good deal, but still, I need cake I like better to keep me running. I'm tempted to just call this a normal shop, but I'll keep it on the "of interest" list. I still haven't found a course I want to take to get there, though.

Short run to Amitié: Rhône-Alpes

This was a run to the northeast part of Shinjuku, in the neighborhood of Kagurzaka. Took a short direct route from Yotsuya Sanchoume, which I don't recommend. I think I need to take the main road from there to the New Mejiro Road, take right and come back to it from the north next time. It will still be close compared to Ginza and Shinbashi. The more direct route that I used was too crowded relative to the sidewalk or mazy in the back streets.

The cake is the Rhône-Alpes from Amitié, which is a basic chocolate cake, layers of ganache between "biscuit" regular cake layers, but with meringue and powered sugar on top. Still pretty simple but delicious and only 450 yen. I'm calling it great. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything else I particular wanted. Noix Noix was listed on the hand-written board out front but I didn't find it inside and the website says that its currently retired. However, maybe something I don't know that I particular want is also great, so I'll definitely go back. One point for Joshi+. This week, they visited Noaki, which I've already done, so no replacement for the list to visit from there.