Cake-off: En Vedette's Rocher over Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait

Did a cake-off today, even starting after noon, due to an appointment and a couple errands, though tomorrow I also have a morning appointment, so I'm not going to start that much earlier. I started, though, in terms of the neighborhood map, by getting something from Sakamotoya, which is a kasutera (an early Japanese cake) shop but I got something called Sugegasa, which is a wheat-based bean filled cake shaped like the traditional hat of that name. It was good, but I'm not that into an. If they had what I would consider a one-person size of kasutera, I would have gotten that, but the smallest was 650 yen size, which I'd give to 4 (not particularly greedy) people. I also found a patisserie called Emporter in Yotsuya 2 (not sure whether it's related to the Setagaya shop of that name), so I'm redoing one of the first loops on the neighborhood course to accommodate it. I had just told myself that next time I revised that loop, I was going to remove the overlap by using a 180 turn to the other side of the street, and at the same time I'm going to merge even one-point overlapping loops, though I'll wait until I get around to the clumps to worry about the other loops. For now, I have to redo the first clump, since merging loops effectively merged to clumps. 

A major errand later, I confirmed that Isetan had Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait and then went for a quick errand to Tokyu Hands, but stopped for a pastry at Fauchon in Takashimaya. It was excellent as Pain au Chocolat go, certainly high quality, but perhaps I should have taken something more original.

They still remembered me from last Tuesday and recognized that I had brought my own bag for cake, bigger this time, and then had the Rocher that I wanted, as well as their name-sake cake, which they had been sold out of Tuesday and I had wondered about. I took the train back, for speed and cake protection, and got the Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait. With the errands, it was a late lunch, and then the cakes. It had been a couple years for the tart, so I had no idea what to expect. Actually, it's caramel chocolate and is little crunchy chocolate balls for texture. It's unique and well made of lots of good stuck that goes well together, so I'm keeping it as great, but the Rocher had flavor and a great balance, so it gets the win. However, I don't have anything to match the Rocher up with, so probably the next cake-off will be a second round for the Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait, though I think that will have to be the 11th.

In the late afternoon, I had 2.5 hours to run (I would have had 3 hours, but I had to play "where is my F-ing key" for almost 30 minutes), so I first tried to do neighbor running course clumps and failed both. The first, I turned where I shouldn't have (following an old version briefly), but it the closure of a shop on one loop and the appearance of a chocolate shop on another, but opening onto the side street, meant I was going to have to revise loops away. Like in the Yotsuya case, I ended up merging three loops, which is going to seriously mess that up. With the severing of the link reversed the direction through Azabu, Hiroo and Roppongi Hills and the link between Ebisu-Nishi and Ebisu-Minami, as well as the detour to get to Jinnan, my map is a mess as far as the wider connections. At least failing there gave me enough time to get over the do the Akasaka--Azabudai--Roppongi--Toranomon loop counterclockwise, and count that and its clump as verified. Next new loop to try to confirm will be back to Aobadai, but I've got to deal with today's destroyed loops first.

Cycling to Paris S'éveille

Thought I needed some exercise, so I took a trip down to the hardest to reach definitely great cake shop (knock on wood), but forgot to bring their card with the list of things I've posted on. I almost gave up and went to one of the four recommended but unvisited places out that way (although, only one of those was on my portable map, and one was misplaced on my Google map).

I was fairly sure that I had never had Tarte Pomme Yuzu, so I got that for 540 yen. Used my phone camera again, which really is not bright enough for outside (something to think about next time I get a new phone, since it's not bright enough outside all the time). As the name implies, this is a tart with apple and yuzu. It was well constructed and the flavors balanced well, or they would if I liked yuzu more. This was a harder call than yesterday's pistachio and cherry, but I'll still say that this was excellent. I'm not sorry for having had it and would be curious to have it again, but hopefully shared with someone, along with something less citrus sour.

The need for the exercise goes back to having made brownies, using my brioche forms (which I just bought 3 more of). When fresh, I would call these excellent, although the problem is that they don't stay fresh. And they don't say uneaten: I scarfed three of these down last night. I'm already making half a batch, so I'm just gong to have to freeze them and figure out how to defrost them so that they are still excellent. Anyway, I also need to experiment with baking time amount per form (this was half a batch, 100 g sugar and 1 egg worth, in 6 forms). Also, instead of coating in powdered sugar (which is great), I'll try frosting them with cream cheese frosting (or just cream cheese would probably be good).

In the afternoon, I went for a walk through the Shinjuku Station area department stores looking for something like what was in this wrapper, namely, dark chocolate with nibs. No luck. Actually, I don't know where to search for good chocolate in Tokyo. Tried to stop at &Market coming back from Jiyugaoka today, and found that they had ended their relationship with Bonnat (although their store front sign is still has them as a kind of subtitle to &Market). This particular by Mobar was 500 yen, which seemed really expensive in Indonesia to the buyer. If I google Monggo, besides their website, I find posts of people saying why is this so expensive in Indonesia, though not about this particular variety. To me, this was great, enough that I was searching (although not enough to stand in line to get inside Jean-Paul Hévin in Iseitan).

Finally, Kouign Amann from Fauchon. Usually, I would go to Shinjuku Takashimiya (which is actually in Shibuya-ku), but I picked this up in Keio. It was okay. In evaluating cake shops, it's hard to know whether to call this cake or bread, but I guess I should keep it as bread and evaluate shops based on their fresh cakes.

Sunday run to Lettre d'Amour [Closed]

Ran just over 14 km, which was a couple kilometers too far (I walked the last kilometer), although the stiffness went away before I had a chance to ice it, so no harm done, I think. You can't find out how far you can go without going to far. I think an approximately 30 km run for next Sunday to get back doing new History and Culture course should wait another weekend. Also, I'll rest from running and cake shops tomorrow. I'm busy the end of next week, so it might be hard to keep the training.

Of the 14 km I did, first there were a very slow 0.63 km in 4'19'' (6.85 min/km) as a loop back home for another layer, a credit card, and a point card. Then I did a moderate-speed 8.26 km in 50'46'' (6.15 min/km) with one early stop to go to Tokyu Hands to check out cake rum and a replacement silicone mat for one that I burned, neither of which I bought; then the basement, where they have a new baking section that will be my new place for buying pecans (smaller cheaper bags, although the nut pieces aren't quite as pretty) but does not do baking alcohol (and the basement alcohol section only had a 700 ml bottle, which I'm not ready for; and also in the basement、Fauchon, where I bought a canelé again (no photo) for 259 yen. The taste was good, but it was too soft for me (says the person who charred the batch yesterday). Speaking of which, I should correct what I wrote about canelé forms, since what I actually have is brioche forms, which I'm not interested unless I'm going to try bostock, which I'm ready for. Lastly, was a very slow 5.19 km in 36'16'' (6.99 km/min) before just walking the last kilometer.

Weekly (Mon to Sun) stats then stand as 26 km very slow and 8 km moderately paced. There's a holiday the coming Thursday, but I'm busy from then to Saturday, so I'm not sure how much running I can get in besides Tuesday, Sunday, and probably Wednesday, although Saturday night I could do a little. I should be able to make 40 km, with at least 20 km slow or faster.

At Lettre d'Amour, I got a croissant for 220 yen and Praliné Opéra for 520 yen. The croissant (no photo) was nothing special, I decided. The cake, which was marked "NEW", was excellent, but very sugary. As one would expect, it is hazelnut biscuit, praline butter cream with chocolate ganache layered and accented with caramelize nuts. When talking about yesterday's cake from Aigre-Douce and labeling it "great" only because I couldn't think of any way to improve it without making it into a different cake, this might be the cake I was imagining. And yet, it was not great to me, so I'm going to stop treating Lettre d'Amour as a "Great" shop, but I don't doubt that when the "Worthy" group gets thoroughly reviewed, this shop will end up in whatever category is below what now I'm calling great, along with Ryoco and others that I started in the great category but later demoted.
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