Viron: Petit Bûche

Christmas Eve, I went to Viron, my highest priority shop (among places with new cakes available), in Shibuya, since that's on the middle three loops (formerly 5 loops) that I'm reconfirming now. I didn't want to do the loop in the middle first or do more than one loop running with cake, so after getting cake (which came, while I was waiting, with a sample of hot wine, a little more than maybe I should have taken, but it served as my snack for this run), I crossed the street and finished off the sleaziest loop, running clockwise the Dougenzaka--Maruyamachou--Shinsenchou loop, which is now part of the Southwest Shibuya Stn. clump, making it almost 15 km long.

The Shibuya Viron shop is open until 22:00, which is why I choose it, because I knew I'd be busy until about  20:00. All they had were Christmas cakes, but they had a couple choices. I looked at what was probably chocolate mousse on the outside and fruit inside and decided that was a dangerous combination (it doesn't take much fruit for a bad balance), and was attracted by hazelnuts and praliné, Petit Bûche. It was very traditional, in it's way. Good but not exciting and the frosting falls off easily, since it's pretty firm and chosen for keeping the log texture.

Jean-Paul Hévin: Bûchette Lichen

I'm way behind, but here goes. By last Wednesday, I had noticed that the individual versions of Jean-Paul Hévin's Christmas cakes were available, so I went hunting. I tried Isetan first, where there was a line (not necessarily for cake), but when I got a chance to ask, I found out that they were sold out, so I left. It was still early enough for me to go by bicycle to the Marunouchi shop, where they didn't have either and I didn't ask, so I went to Ginza Mitsukoshi, where they had both, not too much to my surprise (they are never as busy there). I went with Bûchette Lichen first because they only had one compared to several of the other, so I figured next time the other would still be easier to get, which would turn out to be true.

There is a full-sized version that has a fuller explanation of the layers, so I'm going to assume that they are the same, since the pictures match. The top (and sides of the big cake) is Venezuelan chocolate mousse, then Ethiopian café au lait mousse, a chestnut and almond biscuit, a chocolate and marzipan biscuit, and a cinnamon sablé base. So a high proportion of hard biscuit-type things, flour-less. The problem is the coffee, but I knew that going in. I really like this harder, drier cake as a change and I could accept the café au lait as an interesting flavor and enjoy it. There wasn't even a coffee aftertaste problem for me this time. However, it still left a burning feeling in my stomach, if not my mouth, so I still need to avoid coffee and have to rate it as only excellent.

Besides the bicycling, I did my indoor non-weights workout, which was enough.