Cake-off: Éclat des Jours's Cheminée over Lenôtre's Concerto

For a cake-off, started off with a trip out to Éclat des Jours to get the Cheminée. This had two losses to 1 win, so it was held back a year and this was only a fourth-round. I started running (or doing squats, if stuck at a light) and walking in 1 min and 1 min intervals, but saw that wasn't going to make it much farther than other trips, so I switched to 1 min to 2 min after 10 sets and then 1 min to 3 min after another 10 sets. So I could do 30 1 min intervals, which was more than recent, but still not clearly an improvement. For the trip back to Ginza Mitsukoshi to get Lenôtre's Concerto, I walked and then took the train back for lunch, after which I did the cake-off.

Since these are both weaker cakes among the great cakes, it was a less exciting but still nice cake. Both of these are chocolate, but Cheminée has raspberry, as the picture suggests. Actually, I had doubts about it last time, but I wasn't so worried about it this time. The Concerto is mostly similar to many of my favorite mousse cakes from JPH, but the texture wasn't quite working for me, which could be partially my fault, as how one eats a cake has an effect on the texture. I have to go with what I taste, though, and I'm back to thinking that Cheminée  might be my favorite raspberry chocolate cake and deserves the win, whereas I'm having doubts about Concerto, so I'll need to review it carefully next time.

Cake-off: Sadaharu Aoki's Éclair Caramel Salé over Lenôtre Concerto

Monday, I didn't get out quite so early, maybe 8 am, but ran down to finish off the Roppongi 5&6 loop and then went on to explore areas southeast of there for future neighborhood run loops, though admittedly I switched to walking as it got hotter, and because it's not fun to start and stop running between sites and checking the map. I ended at Mitsukoshi Ginza to get Concerto from Lenôtre for a second-round cake-off for the losers' bracket. From there, I took the train, since it was a straight shot, and got Sadaharu Aoki's Éclair Caramel Salé at Shibuya, which is the only location currently, though I can imagine that they might make it an exclusive somewhere else in the future after it finishes its current run next week. We'll see. With two cakes, I came back by train, which required a transfer, but on the same system.

This time, I'm going with the seasonal cake, Sadaharu Aoki's Éclair Caramel Salé. I appreciated the simplicity of salt caramel filling with a minimum of pastry. I still like the varied textures of Concerto, but next time I'm going to try chilling the silverware, as well as the plate, as I want this to be less melty.

I went out in the afternoon by bicycle to work on the big neighborhood run loop, Daita--Daizawa--Hatagaya--Kamiyama-chou--Kitazawa--Motoyoyogi-chou--Nishihara--Ooyama-chou--Shouto--Tomigaya--Uehara loop and was doing pretty good most of the beginning. At Shimo-Kitazawa Station area, I was not sure where to turn after passing under the tracks, so I tried the first street and ran into three pastry shops in a block that I hadn't known about, so they've been added with a minor adjustment to the map. However, I had overlooked a Jizou nearby that is going to require I chop off the southwest corner as a separate loop, so this loop will continue to get smaller.

Tuesday, no cake. I counted up recent activity and it worked out. I'll have two more cakes during the short work week. Just, I went by bicycle to Hikarie, parked, and ran south to work on Ebisu-Nishi loops, and a few other small ones along the way, all five successful. I'll do more before I get back to the big loop. I came back and did my full indoor workout, though the running turned out to take more than 1.5 h, so I'll need to get more done on other things tomorrow.

Cake-off: Fiorentina Pastry Boutique's Estate over Lenôtre's Concerto

Had the afternoon off and collected cakes by bicycle and then did a little running, still on a 3:7 walking:running ratio and totaling only 34 minutes of running, but it had been 10 days, so it seemed like enough. If I'm reasonably okay tomorrow, depending on the weather, I'll trying running to Ginza instead of using a bicycle.
While at Ginza today, earlier than last evening I was there, I check Origines Cacao and they do have some actual cakes that I've had among their seasonal cakes, so I need to keep visiting, which is my plan for Wednesday and Thursday.

The running was just down to confirm some newly added sites on the way to two small new loops, the Jinguumae 5 loop counterclockwise, to complete the Harjuku south clump and the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama south loop (on which I could not find and Kiri café), to complete the Omotesandou west lump.  I also confirmed a Natural Lawson on the Kita-Aoyama central loop has fresh baked goods worth adding them (no changes to the route required) but that the Streamer Expresso on the Minami-Aoyama north loop does not. Next I need to do the Shibuya east loop and check out some sites around there, but the next loop will be clear back redoing the huge main loop around Akasaka (which I did only by bicycle), since I've found another bakery in the middle that I need to swing around, and possible split off a little loop north of Tokyo Midtown to include a Natural Lawson.

Both the cakes today were recent new ones I'm not completely competent about, so comparing them to each other didn't tell me a whole lot. The chocolate one, Concerto, from Lenôtre was still really nice, but for variety, I'm choosing the white chocolate and pistachio and citrus fruit (I think) Estate from the Fiorentina Pastry Boutique. I still will go to Lenôtre first, because I've only had one cake from them and they are the backup for Origines Cacao now (though I noticed another Ginza 6 cake shop, so when I need a new place as a backup, I can use that, or the pie shop there, if I can wait for cake), but next in priority is another from Fiorentina, though we're coming up on the end of the month, so I'll have to check JPH and Sadaharu Aoki soon. Before that, I'll try to get Estate into a second-round cake-off this weekend with En Vedette.

Lenôtre: Concerto

No running since last Saturday, due to some otolaryngological problems, although the usual accompanying dermatological problem appeared as well. Anyway, Monday I rested, so I didn't get to Sourire, one of 3 basically holiday-only shops among the 14 quite fine shops that I wanted a third cake from to whittle the category down to hopefully closer to the target 32 than 64 shops that its been near. Tuesday, I was well enough to work and go to Isetan afterward and make a third (blogged) visit to Morozoff and try their Rare Cheese Cake. Not that fond of rare cheesecake in general and this didn't impress me in particular. I can rate it as ok, but Morozoff goes in the just fine category, so I at least knocked down the remaining two-cake quite fine shops to 13. 

Wednesday, I went by bicycle to Ginza 6 to get a cake from Origines Cacao. Unfortunately, I've had all 4 or 5 of the regular fresh cakes on display and all 3 seasonal things next to them were jar desserts. They say they are verrine, and I believe them in principle, but JPH's verrine have actually sponge as a layer, so I've allowed them as cakes, but OC isn't JPH and these didn't have anything to distinguish them from a parfait-like dessert, so my previous resolve to accept verrine as cakes collapsed; I'd rather wait to see what comes next month, although if they are like JPH, just the same or different verrine, probably.

I had a good back-up ready though: Lenôtre, a chocolatier that opened a counter at Ginza Mitsukoshi between JPH and F. Cassel this year but I haven't tried yet. I went for the mousse chocolate cake, Concerto. It has glaze and crunch as well, but it's relatively soft for a high percentage of mousse and most resembles my favorite type of JPH cakes. That said, and given the quality, I'm going to have to say it was great, which is a pretty good start, though now I'm back to 14 among the quite fine shops with fewer than 3 cakes and a new top priority. Guess I better hit one of the other 13 next, rather than the old top shop in that category, which is going to have to wait.