Cake-off: Atelier Kohta's Classic Chocolat over Ryoura's Mont-Blanc

Saturday, I ran out to Yoga again for a cake-off, this time for the Mont-Blanc for a third round between two one-and-one cakes. On the way, the stopped at Bigarreaux for a pastry, though they don't have much, instead making breads and meat pies. But they did have a Croissant, so I got that. It's on the bread side rather than pastry, but still well made and it was substantive rather than a soft hotel buffet style morning croissant, as I think of that type, so just good isn't so bad, if you're not looking for something sweet (though I am).

The other cake for this time was Atelier Kohta, which I first got 5 years ago, and it's probably been a couple years since it's cake-off (I have records, but don't bother to look). This is a Classic Chocolat (or at least that's how I recorded it), but if a different kind that my lass one. This is like a classic chocolate layer cake, but small. It was raining, so I walked, but it was enough.

Actually, these are both weak members of the great cakes (I didn't before the comparison, but wasn't surprised) who have one non-great evaluation. The Mont-Blanc is excellent, so I enjoyed having it again, but I still can't detect why I thought it was great. There was a period when I was just starting to get Mont-Blancs and I probably overcompensated then. Certainly, if Ryoura is in your neighborhood, it's a good choice, but I don't need in on my list. The Classic Chocolat makes me think of chocolate layer cake in the American mid-west. I manages to capture and probably improve on the basic taste in a tiny elegant form. I can't say that it is the style of cake I appreciate now, but it still has a place in my heart, so I'm keeping it in the greats list and giving it the win this time. Not sure Atelier Kohta actually has a new cake for me, though I've only had 4 from there: the shop only has about 4 cakes. I might end up giving something a second try.

Ryoura, Éclair Jardinage

Tuesday, I ran out to Youga again, this time for new cake. Even more crowded than before, with children literally stepping on me in a line that was not following social distancing, but how much can I complain about whole families crowding into a small shop (which at least was making people line up outside, but only to the point that people inside could have avoided physically touching each other, except for the little kids dashing around) when I didn't urgently need cake from there, just it was on my list and open. (If Sadaharu Aoki had been open, I would have gone there, though eventually I would have visited Ryoura again).

Backing up, I stopped for a pastry at Bigarreaux. I wanted their almond croissant, but they didn't have that. Instead, I got their Kouign Amann, which was different. It was a loosely packed, so to speak, as they go, and inside there was actual melted butter, in liquid form, which I've never had in one of these butter cakes. I'm going to have to say it was great just because I've never had another like it and it was worth having again and comparing to other types.

Back to Ryoura, I survived with no problems so far and got as my new cake one of their Éclair Jardinage, one of two types of eclair currently running, eclair being one of their regular things, and I've had an excellent one before. The major ingredients of this one, besides the pastry, are pistachio and tayberry, though there is some strawberry. Unfortunately, I couldn't get too excited by this. Maybe tayberry is too subtle for me. Still, it was good, so I'm sticking with Ryoura as a quite exceptional shop.

One note is I walked home, which was a mistake, though one I mad the day before. That time it was after quite a long run. This time, just a fairly straight run to Ryoura, but walking uses different movements and is hard on my hip and feet. The next day I jogged both ways (though to a nearer shop), which turned out much better, and I could even still run in the evening (though thunder sent me hope early).

Bigarreaux, Citron Vert and Sampa

No running or cycling and only normal walking involved, but on Sunday night I shared cake for two from Bigarreaux, which was the visiting patisserie at Isetan until today. I didn't really need more cake from them, but they are an excellent shop, so I was happy to share.

We got Citron Vert, which is obviously lime. Citron is one of their signature cakes, so it seemed a reasonable choice. Also, Sampa (I checked on two days, but it's still possible that I was misreading the diacritic on the last character and it was actually Samba), which is milk chocolate with layers of mango and passion fruit. They were both definitely good, but only the Sampa really interested me enough to call it excellent, though I have to wonder whether I was just seduced by the sugar rush, since it was certainly not its sophistication, not that sophistication is much of a substitute for great cake.

Monday, I went down to Paris S'éveille, which is my #3 shop but doesn't have new cakes, so I got Chausson Pomme (maybe, though Chausson aux Pommes sounds better) and Pain aux Raisins. These were both definitely good, but didn't excite me as much as their top pastries. They still have a few more pastries for me to try, mostly baked tarts, before I have to try something else or revisit an excellent cake. I went by bicycle, which was quite painful to begin with, due to my sprained arm. But at this point, nothing is going to get better without rehabilitation, so I put up with the pain and my arm improved over time, though it was a little tricky nonetheless.

Bigarreaux: Tarte Ordinaire

For today, Sunday (yeah, finally catching up), I chose pastry over cake (so later in the week I'll get cake instead of a pastry). First I verified that Fraoula only only has their prevoius four pastries, which was true. Then I went on to P. Bigarreaux, where I noticed that they did not have their almond croissant (it was fairly early, so I assume that it was not sold out), which was disappointing for the future. Today, I wanted something new. I had to consider my definition of pastry carefully, but I decided that the Tarte Ordinaire qualified (probably the only thing, though there was a flan tart or something that I might allow). This is a basic almond tart with a good deal of rum, not really soaked in it but at least moist with it. It was definitely good, but ordinary, as promised. The rain was little enough that eating outside was fine, though it rained all day and tomorrow will be worse, especially in the morning, as the taiphoon kills up rain clouds.

Of my top shops for pastries (ones with more great ones than sub-excellent ones), only Dalloyau has anything new for me, though I need to check in with P. Shima. I'll probably do that Wednesday on the way to Ginza, where I'll try again to get a cream puff from F. Cassel.

Cake-off: Au Bon Vieux Temps' Chocolat Framboise over Bigarreaux' Le Plaisir

Friday, before a 60+ minute run trying the new Roppongi-Akasaka Loop and Akasaka East Link (yes, I've renamed all my routes again to focus on the neighborhood names on this neighborhood running course map), which I did not do perfectly but good enough that I'm ready enough for a 60 km run, when it fits in my schedule (I'm thinking in two weeks). As desert, as "pastry", I got a Gâteau Basque from Maison d'Ahni, who are visiting Isetan now. This was definitely good to the point that I would probably call it excellent if I were more into this type of baked good, which is a sweet biscuit with jam inside priced like cake.

Saturday, as indicated by the title, I tried a cake-off run, which was foolish given that I could not start until almost noon. I followed the lights and ended up at Shibuya Stn., where crossed via the 1st floor of Hikarie, which is much more reasonable that the pedestrian walks outside, in terms of crowds. The lights kept me going west rather than south so it turned out to be faster to go to Bigarreaux for Le Plaisir (where I bought the last one) before Au Bon Vieux Temps for the 1st in the list for 2nd round cake-offs, Tentation Chocolat, which was sold out. Fortunately, I have a smartphone now so I could look up this blog and see that I could use Chocolate Framboise as a backup (though that was pretty far down on list, which is only based on the order I originally blogged this cake). The total run was 14+ km and then I walked two stations to see what the Jiyuugaoka shops had for future cake-offs.

Though both these cakes were losers in the first round, I reported them as still great. Starting on them, though they were definitely good, it was not immediately obvious that they were great, so I had to adjust my strategy with the first half of each cake of alternating between small bites of each to larger bites continuously of each, which worked for recognizing their greatness. Le Plaisir is a little subtle, having lots of cream, so you need enough to get a good experience of the flavor. I'm going to go with the Framboise Chocolat, though, which is ironic in the usual way of contradicting what I just wrote earlier in the week about having a brownie bottom is a bad idea (though this has a couple thinner layers, unlike a brownie, which makes a difference).

Even though I still have to get to Tentation Chocolat as a priority, my next 2nd-round cake off will be between two former winners, which is more interesting. However, I've got a couple recent new great cakes that I'd like to do a first-round with, so I'll see whether I can manage that, even though I'm not going to be able to start any earlier than this week. On the plus side, both target shops open later and are closer, and one has multiple branches, so I can try a different location if I fail at the first.

Toshi Yoroizuka: Jungfrau

Yesterday, I did reconnaissance for cakes I had planned doing a cake-off with today, as well as other visits which did not give any new information. Along the way, in a park, I ate a Croissant from Bigarreaux that was fluffy but with a sugar coating on the outside, I think. This was done by bicycle over about 3 hours. In the afternoon, I did an hour or so of neighborhood running, but it's a little hazy now, but the photo evidence is that I was working on the east part.

Today, I started in the opposite direction but realized before crossing Meiji Doori that I didn't have enough cash with me for a cake-off. That made me reevaluate what my priority should be and instead I explored a proposed western Harajuku route first before swinging back to the extreme southeast neighborhoods (running the opposite direction as yesterday) and finding that I really don't know that route well yet, so I'll have to work on it more this week (at least one day will be Isetan, so that shouldn't be a problem, except that it is a little far even going the most direct route). I ended at Midtown, after about 90 minutes of running, and mostly walked back with a Jungfrau, which seems to be a Swiss version of a Mont-Blanc, though I don't know what's in it besides the usual whipped cream under chestnut paste and chestnuts. Inside the cream were pieces of actual cake sponge, which I think were the source of a ginger flavor. The base was a very interesting meringue cookie, very thick (around 1 cm at most), which was baked to a quite dark outside but white on the inside. It was definitely good but not really good enough to keep Toshi Yoroizuka in the top 7. Before I officially demote them, though, I'll see whether either of the top contenders, Bien-être or Éclat des Jours, can do as well with the same number of cakes.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Feuilletine Praliné over Bigarreaux's Le Plaisir

As planned, I took advantage of Bigarreaux's simultaneous reintroduction of their Le Plaisir and their visit at Isetan to do a midweek cake-off. I took a chance, in that I didn't confirm that Bigarreaux even had their Le Plaisir at Isetan or that it was not sold out before buying the  Feuilletine Praliné at Jean-Paul Hévin because I saw that there was only one of the latter left. Fortunately, it worked out fine (Bigarreaux's was not mobbed on a Thursday; Friday would be harder day, but I would have asked to reserve me a cake for tomorrow if either had been sold out and I hope that it would have been possible, though I've never tried it).

The run was to try my neighborhood run around Omotesando Hills. I had included some more little parks, including one I've now just labeled as No-name Shibuya-ku Park, since it is maintained by that park system but does not seem to merit a name (which is understandable). Also, I expanded my runs farther into the interial, which I'm less thrilled with. Narrow dark streets are not so fun (it was nice to reach the temple and graveyard, as that is a lot less creepy than in interial road going by a dark educational institute---at least that as much as the sign told me) and streets with fast moving taxis are also no fun, so I'm bumping my made back to the main street and shrinking a new loop back to just running around the block. It was 8+ km at about 9 km/h.


Cake-off: these were both definitely great cakes, so I'm completely satisfied with no cake tomorrow and heading out to explore a new place Saturday morning. Both are chocolate, but the Le Plaisir has caramel and orange, whereas Feuilletine Praliné has, obviously praliné, as well as meringue. The Le Plaisir would probably win against an average great cake, if there is such a think, but the Feuilletine Praliné is so great and so much of what I like that it is not hard to select it as the winner. I high recommend getting either both before they stop being available.

I'll probably wait at least a week before the next cake-off, but I can justify the high frequency back a backlog of JPH cakes and hope that more ones will appear in December (though I'm not sure what will be left to match them against unless I find some more great cakes soon: November hasn't been very productive in that way. 

Bigarreaux: Bronte

Planned a big cycling tour of the usual shops I check every month, but decided to start as last week and explore the route out to Maison Douce halfway, which I was satisfied this time, before heading down to Bigarreaux, which opens earliest of the ones I'm interested in, 9 am. I got the Bronte, which they marked as a specialty, I think. It's Sicilian pistachios and wild strawberry. It was definitely good, but I guess I'm not that into strawberry, and I definitely don't like a gelatinous texture (as gelatinous textures go, I have no complaint here, just I don't have any praise either). This knocks P. Bigarreaux out of the Excellent category, since there are definitely some Quite Good shops that I rate high, though based on fewer cakes, so Bigarreaux did well staying at the level it was to cake number eight.

I did manage to get up to Aigre-Douce, but called it quits after that, since I was getting dangerously tired (I'm more of a danger to myself and others tired on a bicycle than running) and, having started in rain, had neglected to put on sunscreen and the September subtropical noon sun was breaking through the clouds.

Total I did about 48 km, near as I can tell, though Google does not allow that all used paths are usable. For example, I was briefly along this river when trying to get back southeast to Bigarreaux without following Ring Road 8 (which I have good reason to dislike). I like the way this picture turned out. To bad it was not taken with a good camera (or by someone who knows how to use any kind of camera well).

Yu Sasage: Fraisier Pistache

Did a long run, with research and a 7th cake from an excellent shop. The run was okay, at least no problems and most of the navigation went well where expected and no worse than expected where not. Kept a steady speed of 9 km/h over all three legs totaling about 32 km: To Bigarreaux, where I got a great Pain au Raisin (300 yen), very buttery (or maybe it used a lot of egg yoke, as it was very rich);

then to Yu Sasage, and finally home. I was worried for the heat, as it was 25+ deg Celsius but was dressed for it and drank a lot. The cake was definitely good, with the pistachio filling being fairly solid, which was good for the long trip. The fruit dominated, though, and while not bad, were not exciting (you need pretty firm strawberries, but really sweet ones would be very too ripe, perhaps.

Cake-off: JPH: "Matcha" over Bigarreaux "Citron"

Still not running, as I've gone into a full-blown cold (after seemingly fighting something for a couple weeks but not stopping running), so I consoled myself with a cake-off sourced from Isetan. Although they did not have it back in February when I checked the main store, they had the Citron (500 yen) when Bigarreaux visited Isetan (though still no Le Plaisir, but they did not bring a very big selection of fresh cakes). This was excellent, with layers of lemony cream and sponge cake, and something that I would be interested to make (not that I've done a lot of baking laterly), but I was not feeling the greatness; since it was a fairly early evaluation (and thus a priority to revisit for cake-off), I'm not surprised that it doesn't meet my current standard for greatness.

The cake I got to compare it to was not very similar, but was something I was having a hard time matching something up to (it was a priority because I wanted to have it again before it disappeared from Jean-Paul Hévin, which supposedly will happen May 1, when they'll introduce a couple éclairs that I should evaluate). This was the Matcha (735 yen), which is a rectangular mousse layer cake. Being JPH, it's chocolate cake, and the matcha (powered Japanese green tea) obviously gives it much of it's color as well as it's name), though I'm not experienced enough with it to pick it out of the harmony. Actually, the main flavor comes from yuzu (which is citrus, which is how it relates to the Citron) and cherry, which in generally I'm not fond of, but again, I wouldn't necessarily be able to pick out of the harmony of flavors other than to note that something was working with the yuzu and matcha. This definitely is a great cake, so it easily wins this cake-off.

For Friday, I just got some bread to celebrate another work week over and a chance to rest and recover. This is their rye bread, and it was good, but not a really strong in flavor, so nothing special.

Ryoura: Mille-feuille Chocolat

Under my updated patisserie hierarchy, Ryoura was the other potentially quite excellent shop I needed more samples from, besides Limevert, which I visited yesterday. Ryoura does not have a café space, so I also needed to stop somewhere for a snack in order avoid gobbling down the cake under poor outdoor conditions.

Usually I would go around Shibuya Station area (for good reasons of crowds, [decade-long] construction projects, and car-oriented roads), but I wanted to confirm that the Limevert counter at Hikarie, across from the station, does not have fresh cake, which I did, and noted that Pierre Hermé and Sadakaru Aoki both did now, so I added them to the map.

Due to the current state of construction projects, the southeast pedestrian bridge is less direct and narrower than ever, so I regretted not using some other strategy to cross. I skipped the southwest bridge and went around, although that bridge is fairly direct, so it might have been better just to use it. Even with all that, total time to get from my start to P. Bigarreaux was 1 hour to the second, according to my chronometer, and my speed was 11 km/h for 11 km and faster than the first part of yesterday's run. There, I got the Croissant aux Almondes au Chocolate (400 yen); it was great, with both almond paste and chocolate inside, chocolate drizzled outside, and baked to be hard on the outside (some almond croissant are soft and flat compared to a regular croissant and some avoid this but have an almost deep-fried outside, so this was the latter type). It was great pasty, but what a calorie bomb, with both sugar and fat. Half would have probably been enough, but for a 23 km run, it was perfect fuel (plus I ate my normal breakfast about 1.5 hours before starting).

From there, I went the short distance to Ryoura, but I made the mistake of trying to take back streets, so not so direct. Coming back, I had to swing by Bigarreaux again because I had forgotten my other purpose there, to check whether they had either of the great cakes I had had there previously (unfortunately, not; they are big on having a rotating lineup); from there I stayed on the main road when it headed toward the north end of the Shibuya Station, where perhaps the most famous Japanese pedestrian scramble is. Too crowded, of course, and the same pretty much all the way past Omotesando. My speed was 10 km/h for 12 km, but still slightly faster than the second half of yesterday's run.

The cake was Mille-feuille Chocolat (500 yen), which seemed like a good idea in my running-addled selection state, since I like both the flavor and the type, but really chocolate and custard are both much better than chocolate custard, or at least in this realization. I'll say it was good, since the mille-feuille was good and it wasn't so bad as chocolate custard goes.

So, end of another week, where am I in terms of running and patisseries? Running, I broke 100 km for the week for the first time since restarting my training, though I was running pretty slow: I never even got up to 12 km/h, so I did only about 85 km of 12 km/h-eq. running, which is only a 5% increase from two weeks ago. My current plan for next week would have me running less than 90 km raw to reach about the same amount as 12 km/h-eq, though I'm going to have to revise that plan now that Ryoura has dropped out as next Sunday's destination.

On the Patisserie side, supreme Jean-Paul Hévin doesn't have anything new unless I'm willing to pay double+ to get unneeded chocolat chaud, which I've decided is unwarranted. Quite superb Dalloyau definitely needs a visit soon, even without it's recent win in the last cake-off. Ryoura drops out of the quite excellent group, so I moved up Bigarreaux and Toshi Yoroizuka, which I have deeper histories with, but one will eventually have to go unless Limevert fails next week. The Toshi Toshizuka will be one source for my next cake-off, though I'm not sure when I'll get to that: I probably should do another cake-less run to prepare for it, since 6 km Friday is really just half a normal run; I need to call ahead to get them to hold me a piece and then get to Isetan for the competition, so I need planning, but I don't have that much control over my day-to-day overtime work hours. Limevert is still potentially a quite excellent shop, but under-visited, so I need to get back there next weekend for a fifth cake, this time by a longer more comfortable route, say by swinging south through Aoyama Cemetery, coming back along Meguro River, and taking the green path that picks up where the above-ground river begins to get up to Umegaoka and follow the train line again. Among the excellent shops, I need a second visit to Heritage, but that requires a no-overtime day on a Monday, Tuesday, or Friday, which is going to be tough this week, and I also want a second cheesecake from Morozoff, for a training run day. Since I don't need to get back to Ryoura this weekend, I can use one weekend run for a new shop (or at least one I haven't blogged yet). If I don't manage to get to some completely new shop during the week (such as Pierre Gagnaire, which is easy but I haven't actually gotten an recommendations on it), I'll maybe finally go out to Toni Coni, which has been on my radar for a while. Otherwise, maybe Yukinoshita, just to get it off the list of places to blog about. Either would be shorter than going back to Ryoura, so I'll have room maybe to make some side visits or take a more comfortable/safe/interesting route over the most direct route.

Bigarreaux: Marius

Took a half-day off and walked and ran to Bigarreaux. As usual, started off too fast and averaged 6.2 km/h in the walking part. 3 km in, I "ran" 2 km at 7 km/h. Now it's very natural for me to run the same speed I walk. No problem yet. Not sure whether I'll raise my distance before replacing my walking with running, but I'm ready to introduce 8 km/h running. Coming back I just walked, averaging 5.8 km/h, so I'm just going to pretend all the walking was at 6 km/h, in terms of my budget, which I haven't used up but will be busy the next couple days (but will definitely get some cake in anyway).



At Bigarreaux, where I ate in; I had Marius for 540 yen. It tasted how I should have expected, so I should learn to analyze and choose more wisely, since it was not my thing. It's three layers of biscuit (probably almond), too layers of cassis (blackcurrant) buttercream, and one layer of apricot gel. It was good and well constructed, but I'm not that into that fruity a cake. Actually, the apricot was too weak for me (I didn't read the card that far when I was there and wasn't sure it wasn't mango): two layers apricot, one layer cassis might have been better for me.

That's 0 for 3 in my attempt to introduce near-great shops into my evaluations. Of course, I'm working my way up the from the bottom by virtue of looking at the ones I have the fewest cakes from, since they are all earlier drop-outs from my original potentially great list. Eventually, I'll have to weaken the criterion, but I'll try a few more first.

Sunday: Ryoura, Extreme

Sunday was cycling. First, I tried to visit A Tes Souhaits! But I arrived around noon (they open at 11) on Mother's Day (if that mattered), so there were a few dozen people in line and it sounded like they were warning new people that they couldn't promise they wouldn't sell out. I hadn't prepared and I need to update my map in that area, so the only places I knew were Jun Honma, which I didn't want to visit again, and L'Epicurien, which wouldn't begin selling cake until 13:00. I'm not sure whether that is just a Sunday thing, but the closest thing to an official website lists 13:00 as opening time now, although the door isn't locked, so they might sell you something besides fresh cake. It was obnoxious, but now I'm curious to go back. If I had remembered, I would have gone to Arcachon, in the basement at the station. Maybe I would have tried the Joshi+ recommended café Patisserie Tigre, although my plan is to skip this one. I was on a bicycle, so I gave up on the north and went down to Ryoura in Yoga, which is not close, but closer than home and a little closer to home and anyway in a more familiar area of town.

I got the Extreme for 560 yen. It's not really that extreme, although it has some sort of famous brandy in it. It's a little unstable for eating outside (very narrow and the layers tend to separate) but it was excellent chocolate cake. I'd enjoy having it again, although I could not say for sure that it was great, so I'll consider Ryoura an excellent shop and get around to having a third cake there after I've visited the great shops a little more (at least the less frequented ones that actually have more cakes that I haven't tried).

I was out riding for about four hours, so it did not seem overly greedy to also visit Bigarreaux, which is the excellent shop nearby that I'm much more familiar with. I got Le (?) Kouign Amann, which is not a French cake, although I've never seem one that was spiral, so this was quite different for cakes of this name, although the general flavor was still Kouign Amann, just no filling.
It was 300 yen and also excellent.

39 km loop:

Tried just dipping into Kanagawa pref., looking to see whether I should expand again outside of Tokyo. The detour at Shibuya Sta. was was much more than I intended, although I liked the south part of it and should use that again. Shibuya is not just runner friendly, which is why I don't usually go there for cake. Since I'm not trying to find the shortest route, I should stick to detouring around it more fully.

WIth the detour, the run to Bigarreaux was about 13 km, which took an acceptable 80 minutes. Because I was doing a loop stopping for cake and exploring new roads, I was not trying to do maximum speed, although I still tried to time myself, to stay motivated. Total was about 39 km at the same pace (4 hours total), although I was definitely slow at the end. For a faster run, I need less stuff in my backpack or no backpack. It's more a problem of bulk making it press against my back than weight. I could wear the jacket (I'm still running in my same super cool UV protection shirt, although I get watery eyes rather than so much sweat. No special skin problems except for burning eyes and dried out feet). At least for today, my back was the weak link for increasing my speed.

At Bigarreaux, they've got three autumn cakes out, so I'll need to get back there again. This time, I got the Misérable for 500 yen. This is said to be a traditional Belgian cake of fermented butter cream sandwiched between high-almond-content cake. It's not that sweet, but, as you can see, that's a lot of butter. It's the kind of thing that I like very much, for variety, but can't really say that it is great. Would definitely like to have it again.

So, the entrance to Kanagawa is still not my favorite, although I was not the only runner or cyclist on the two-lane road on the Kanagawa side coming from Futakotamagawa, and it was okay, as far as I went on it. I liked the canal route that I took for the south end of the run. Google is wrong about the need to detour to cross the big expressway: there are crosswalks and lights right at the canal roads. My problem was getting off and making my way back to Tokyo. So I can use the canal route to move east-west (if I don't need to be very deep in Kanagawa), but I still need to find a good entrance point and initial road.

Coming back, I stopped by (Patisserie) de Bon Coeur in Koyama (Shinagawa dist.). They have a cafe downstairs, I think, but there is a regular moderately sized adult, fancy cake counter. I got the Gateau Pistache (guessed spelling) for 648 yen. This is pistacio and raspberries. Fairly standard cake. It was very good. Can't say that it reached great, but there's a lot of competition in this category, so it's hard to stand out. There are several parks around and it's close to one of the History and Culture Walking Courses, so maybe I'll get back there again, but I'm not going to make it a priority. I have enough other places to keep me interested. I'll update the map to reflect that I've been there.

Cycling: Fraoula, Paris S'éveille, and Bigarreaux

Since I ran long yesterday, just leisurely cycling (and it would be more leisurely if I had a bicycle better geared for slopes).

I started with Bigarreaux, since they open at 9 am, and got the Mille Feuille (for 500 yen). It's a standard cake, so I'm not sure how to tell whether it is great, but I like it and had no complaints. They use 100% Viron Co. flour and fermented butter for the crust. The display-case picture looks better than the other one I took outside, so I'll use it. I'm running out of things to get from there.

Next was Paris S'eveille (where there is a sign telling you no photographs of the display case), where I am definitely not running out things, certainly not things to blog about. This Theatre is two kinds of mousse inside: milk chocolate and bitter chocolate. This was great, although I'm not that into milk chocolate. The balance seemed okay, but heavy on the milk. It would probably be better in colder weather. This is not a cheap place: it was something like 620, or maybe 670 with tax. They have people lining up, so they can charge high, although their location is no doubt more expensive than the other two today and most places outside of those in central Tokyo.
Finally, I stopped by Fraoula. This is called Paradis and has a completely unhelpful description on their card. Obviously there is chocolate on top and some browned orange with that. I'll guess Bavarian creme and chocolate mousse of some type for the main layers. I also got the Bostock and confirmed that it was better than Aux Bacchanales'. The moistness is better distributed, I think, rather than having gooey parts and drier parts.

Saturday (1st shop) 30 km to Patisserie Bigarreaux: Le plaisir, Citron, and Pithivier

Well, since I had put together almost 26 km in two runs last time, I had planned to run 28 km, but I have to add 1 km for not looking at the original map and 1 km because I missed a turn (I updated the map), so I suppose I should plan 32 km for next time and see whether I can stay on course.

I ate in the store, Patisserie Bigarreaux on Sazae-san (longest running television animated series) Street, so given how tired I was, as soon as they put them in front of me I dug in (but in small bites, dissecting). However, since I was still in the store, I could take pictures afterwards.

First is Le plaisir, which, as you can see from the card is 540 yen and has hazelnuts and orange and some caramel-type flavor mousse chocolat. It is just the kind of mousse, cream, and crunchy base that I like. I'll say great cake, knowing that this evaluation might have more to do with the kind of cake I like than whether it was actual well made, but that's just the way it has to be.

The citron (lemon) for 480 yen is a lighter sweeter cake with actual somewhat spongy cake and lemon icing/cream. Again, great cake. 

The Pithivier for 340 yen, which is an almond cream filled mini-pie/tart, did not work following the sweet lemon. It did not taste bad, just a little bitter, so I did not appreciate it. I assume that it's actually fine, normally.

Bigarreaux: 2nd cake, Bergamote Fraise

No running (I have to restrain myself for tomorrow morning) but cake from Isetan. I went for the visiting patisserie again, since the maskotte on Wednesday was very good. This time was Bergamote Fraise  (ベルグモットフレーズ), meaning Bergamot orange and strawberry for 520 yen. It was good, with a good balance between the cake layers and mousse/cream layers (1:3), which makes it soft, which is why the strawberry on top got pushed off center, and you can see that I lost some strawberry sauce to the box. I'd visit again (actually, I reviewed tomorrows route map, and I'll go within a couple blocks of there, coincidentally, and my endpoint is not too far away, so I could take the station in that direction back).

No running but Patisserie Bigarreaux (at Isetan): Maskotte

No running today (running takes time and I've got other things to do, like prepare curry and try to make paneer for the first time).

Cake was from Patisserie Bigarreaux (パティスリービガロー), in Setagaya (世田谷), who are featured at Shinjuku Isetan (伊勢丹), of course (it's Wednesday, new featured patisserie at Ma Patisserie (マ・パティスリー) day), which does not seem to have a home page, which I was counting on for getting the name of the cake. Anyway, I've been back and it was Maskotte (マスコット）; it's three layers of sponge with thin layers of cream on top of each and nuts. I've read the other layers have hazelnuts with cream, but the top layer is definitely almonds and the fruit flavor is orange, which I (sometimes) like in cake. It was 500 yen. Very good. Definitely worth further investigation.

No pictures yet, but I'm still in test mode on this blog.