Frédéric Cassel: Tarte Brûlée

Sunday, after lunch at Dominique Ansel Bakery, I tried their Bostock. It was good in an American kind of way: excessively huge. I was busy, so no running or cake, although I did someone a favor and got a non-fresh-type chocolate cake later that I'm saving to split.

Monday I ran, but it was a pastry day. I finally got around to trying the merged Akasaka-Azabudai-Roppongi-Toranomon loop. It required a good deal of checking my map and is not so close (plus I stopped at Tosho Yoroizuka in Tokyo Midtown, where did not spot anything new), but the route was not completely unfamiliar. I need to try again to see whether I can cheat for the internal pedestrian bridge and enter it from rooftop garden on the way down a slope rather than having to go all the way to the bottom of the slope and then climbing up the bridge stairs. It will depend on how far that change takes me away from the entrance to the temple on that part of the route. For the pastry, I would have gone to the patisserie in the ANA hotel just north of there, but I was a little late. I was also too late for any pastries to be left at the cafe near Akasaka Stn. (they had some other things), so I tried Croissant Café at Aoyama. I went with the croissant, which by that point had been under a heat lamp for quite a while, so it was noticeably dried out. It seemed basically good but obviously not special. I walked for about 1/2 km after that, which was a mistake, but then the rain started coming down heavily and I would have appreciated getting home even a couple more minutes earlier (though I still would have been wet). It was a long run, which was fine after taking more than 48 hours off from running.

Tuesday was a run to Ginza finally to get cake. This month's feature is brulée, which was I was optimistic about, particularly the tart. I avoided timing, but it was a pretty fast run. I stopped by Viron to see if they had anything new (thing visible, so I should have asked) before running down to Ginza Mitsukoshi to visit Frédéric Cassel and get the Tarte Brulée. I'm a little confused by the description, which says that there is a vanilla buiscuit but hazelnut-flavored tart crust. I've already forgotten whether there were to separate layers to the shell. Inside, is vanilla ganache and Jivara cream (which I think is a milk chocolate cream) on top with caramelized hazelnuts. It's mild as flavors go, but still excellent. I'll try another of this series next week, I expect.

Dominique Ansel Bakery: 25-Layer Tart Tatin

Tuesday, being the first day of the short workweek, I went for a pastry. I overdid it the previous day and had things to do around the house, so I just did a quick run to Christa and got a Pain aux Raisins. It was definitely good, but I sensed that this would have been better more fresh; not much I can do about that with a shop that's only open on weekdays.

Wednesday, I went to Ginza Mitsukoshi with the intention of visiting Frédéric Cassel and found out why, I think, they still have not updated their homepage to include this month's featured selection of cakes, which I already saw on the 1st: they were not selling them today because of focusing on chocolate sales. Well, I'm not that into this month's theme, there are two more weeks, and there's a new theme every month, so no worries. My back-up was Dominique Ansel Bakery. I haven't heard anything great about them but they also have a shop on my neighborhood running course and they are Mitsukoshi, so that's reason enough. I went with the 25-Layer Tart Tatin. It's heavy, started off lopsided and came in a huge bag, so I mostly walked (hard) on the way back. This was as good as layers of baked apple can expected to me. I wonder if the great one I think I had was warm? Anyway, it's good and probably healthier than mounds of cream, just not that exciting to me. Still, I'd like to get their eat-in place in Omotesandou some time.