Henri le Roux: Fondant Caramel C.B.S.

Monday, I did another long run, this time down to Shibuya Station, stopping at kilometer markers for my next long run in westernmost Jinguumae (1 and 5 Chou-me) and then swinging back north the long way around Yoyogi Park and Jinguu itself, verifying multiple markers in Shouto, Tomigaya, and Yoyogi. Along the way, I had a croissant from R Baker at the Toukyuu Food Show (which is part of a shopping area under Shibuya Station). It was a little bitter, though it didn't really look that burnt, and butterier than usual. It certainly was not overly bread-like (not being overly fluffy inside) and it was good, I guess, but it's not really the direction I'm looking for either (kind of greasy). Still two more bakeries there, though one only has had only croissants as pastries every time I've checked.

Tuesday, I got around to trying Henri le Roux's Fondant Caramel C.B.S., which is the closest they've gotten to fresh cake in more than a year. I think my microwave is too weak, as I did not get caramel oozing out the bottom from microwaving 15 seconds, just a sort of moist center (I think I should have unwrapped it first, too). It was still good. I did fewer kilometer markers today but repeated 6b, which is not very memorable, and did the ones in Yoyogi Park (where, despite blossoms being hard to find, revelers were still at it , including vomiting, though, not too near me this time) and next to it for the first time. Next time I finally get around to trying the new loop southwest of Shibuya Station, I think.

Cake-off: "Le Suprême" over "Miroir Cassis"

Saturday, I did a two-part run, first up to Aigre-Douce to get Miroir Cassis, that I have an ambiguous "great" report on, so I wanted to resolve that. I had forgotten how poorly their bags fix their boxes, so that it's impossible to keep them level. To make matters worse, they put cool packs both inside and outside the box, both on the back, so it would take a pretty well fitted bag to keep it from flipping over. Needless to say, it was pretty banged up from trip home, which was longer than necessary. Next time (I'm planning to go back Thursday), I'm taking a route that sticks to main (straight and relatively level) and bring a good back that I can repack in, as needed. This was about 11 km, with slightly more of that 10 km/h versus 9 km/h.

The second run was to Paris S'éveille for Le Suprême. This has blueberry and chocolate, so I wasn't sure what to match it with anyway, which was why I paired it up with Miroir Cassis, which is at least fruit. This is a mousse cake, though, and they advised me to get it home within 1 hour, which running wasn't going to accomplish to I used the train. At least I saved myself the cost of the sports drink that I would have needed to run back, though the front chocolate sheet stuck to the box and broke when I pried it loose. I varied my running route just because I knew I would cycle the next day and most of my route would otherwise be the same as Thurday's, so that added about another kilometer, to make it about 12 km at 10 km/h.

It was a pretty lopsided contest. My original estimation that Miroir Cassis was not great, and I'm not sure that it even qualifies as excellent, though the texture is good, I appreciate the mini macarons, and the fruit taste is nice. But Le Suprême is rich and blue berries provides an uncommon accent. So, in recognition, I also need to get back to Paris S'éveille.

I should also mention that Friday I tried Henri le Roux's Noir Signature tablette bar/tablet, which was definitely excellent, though I'm comparing to months-old imported chocolate from the grocery. I haven't had other chocolatier tablette chocolate for quite awhile.

[Saturday, Isetan] Le Salon Jacques Borie: Mille-fieulle and Tarte Citron

Took a rest at Jacques Borie, which is the most expensive café I go, by far. This is café cake, which follows different rules. I'm not even going to get into the pricing, since you're paying a lot for atmosphere (though the 10% service charge could be said to cover that).

Had the Mille-feuille, which is vanilla cream (not custard) in between fairly loose layers, so it was more like vingt-feuille than mille-feuille. This is not necessarily a complaint. Because it was cream, not custard, the inner layer could not support much force, so the pastry layers need to be fairly easy to cut through for it not to be quite difficult to eat. It was unique and excellent, as it should be. The lemon tart was definitely good, but not so much that I was too impressed, at least not by the couple bites I had. So the café is still excellent. I'll save up and maybe go back again in a year.

I also got the new Canelé au Caramel from Henri le Roux, C.B.S., Chocolat, and Framboise. These were disappointing. I'll say they are good, but they aren't anything I need at all. They are bit heavy without being particularly chewy and I can't recall much rum flavor. These run at least through April, so I'm still waiting for the cake to come back to see whether it was really as great as I thought the first time around.

Running without cake

Had bad luck even before I got out running. I was in a hurry (for no reason, as it turned out), and bashed my arm on a door and then got a jacket zipper stuck and broke it (it was old and cheap, though), before getting to Anniversary and seeing that they were closed at 6 pm (which is on their homepage, which I looked at but apparently it did not make an impression). From there, I decided to do a run to Tokyo Midtown to check what Henri le Roux was up to, which turned out to be being permanently closed, as of Dec. 26. While I was there, I checked out Dean & Deluca, which is a kind of deli and café, and noticed for the first that the few cakes they have there come from other local shops (whose names I recognized except one). That could be useful information at some point, since Dean & Deluca has longer hours. Now the question in my mind is whether all Dean & Deluca shops have the same selection of cakes. This time I chose to go without cake. I might get something from Isetan tomorrow, regardless of whether I run, since I'm a couple days behind (although I've also done a lot of short training runs).

From Tokyo Midtown, I came back to Meiji Gingu Gaien and did a lap and a half of intervals, 12 km/h (1.225 km in 4 intervals) and 10 km/h, which was my speed for most of the run, which in total was about 9.5 km. I'm still 20% below my weekly running budget, since I've been doing more speed work than long runs. With the holidays coming, I'm not sure how much running I'll get to, but perhaps some.

Henri le Roux: Bouchée au Praliné Croquant

Messed up Monday and ran without cake. I've been shuffling my schedule too much and forget which one I checked the hours on and Asterisque is not open Monday, but I still got in 11 km at 9 km/h, which was too fast. I was 1 km over Sunday cycling and needed to run back slower, but I didn't know the kilometer marks, just I slowed down, but not enough, I just went from less than 1/2 km/h above 9 km/h to less than 1/2 below, and I'm not doing fractions, so I was over budget. On the other hand, I expanded my running budget by less than 1% over two weeks, so if it jumps an extra 1% over the maximum (which is supposed to 10%, but I pad that with weekly walking), then no big deal. I couldn't run today anyway.

Instead, I went to Henri le Roux (at Isetan) and really splurged (it sort of counts for Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday), and got the Bouchée au Praliné Croquant (ブーシェ・オ・プラリネ・クロッカン, 972 yen) which is a big crunchy (but soft) chocolate praliné stick, which is why it costs three times a normal little chocolate, although the quality is similar. I tried to ask what ブーシェ (buushe) means and they looked it up in their notes, but didn't know (actually, it means a mouthful). Well, it's just a department store counter. What I really wanted was to try their praliné mini tarts, which are only available at Isetan, but they only come in the gift sets that started at 3000 yen, so not something I'm going to get into lightly. Anyway, great sweet, in the sense that I definitely want to remember to get it again, but not, of course, cake, so sort of a side project.

Full disclosure, I'm also working through my raspberry chocolate not-quite macarons, which I'm surprised have gone moist inside from absorbing moisture from the ganache, which is supposed lwhat you're supposed to want, but that ganache had sat in the freezer for too long and was dried out, so I hadn't expect a change even after two days (which is the recommended about of time of waiting before eating after filling, not that I'm intentionally that patient).

Jean-Paul Hévin, Caracas

Cake came first, from Jean-Paul Hévin at Isetan: the "saisonnier" cake Caracas, which is a mild chocolate mousse in layers between vanilla and chocolate flavored biscuit, all coated in chocolate (ganache?). It was definitely excellent, but I have to stop short of calling it "great", especially next to their Mont-Blanc. Sadly, they aren't doing a different special "Mont" every month this year, but of course the regular Mont-Blanc is great anyway and is hard to resist when it is around. Still two more seasonal cakes to try at Isetan and one at the Marunouchi chocolate bar, although that one has coffee, so I'll save that one for last. Now if I could only get to Kyoto, where they have several interesting things, although Isetan also has an interesting mousse selection that I might try as eat in.

I should also mention that I went toTokyo Midtown Henri le Roux the day before, and the exclusive eat-in-only cake I thought I saw a sign for just 12 days before was already gone, so instead I had a repeat of the great chocolate cake, a good cup of Chocolat Chaud, and part of a chocolate crepe that was good, but I don't really need either crepe or the ice cream that comes with it. Never saw any information about that cake on line, so I guess I have to just stop by now and then and see what's going on over there if I ever want something like that. Something to do when I want to take a day off cake but am willing to be tempted.

Running was simply down to Meiji Jingu Gaien and two laps alternating between about 200 meters and 300 meters at 8 and 10 km/h, respectively, for a total of 1.525 km at the higher speed. It was a little difficult due to police at one entrance (that is often used) and a lot of people with cameras at the south end (which has been crowded all week), which I put down to leftovers from the Design Week event, but did not explain why there were photographers on step ladders at the 100 m mark. I assumed some celebrity was still inside and people were trying to get pictures of them, but I found out from the news later that the couple of firetrucks with the police were due to a tragedy involving an exhibit that burned, taking the life of a 5 year-old child. Sorry for the grim report, but tragedy comes from anywhere and affects us in unexpected ways, which we should be prepared for as best we can.

Meiji Gingu Gaien course: canelé

Just a training/body-testing run today, about 4 km total, 1.2 km of which was 10 km/h interspersed with some 8 km/h, with the final 1.5 km at 9 km/h to Marusho supermarket to get milk for canelé to use the yoke left over from yesterday's experimental cake component, which was just egg white and almond powder (basically, just an almond, unsweetened shortbread, so it was just a base). I suspect that there was an error in the book that left out more sugar that went in with the almond powder.

I include a picture of the canelé I made because these are actually new: I got a regular mold (maybe 60 ml?), so even you bake it until the outside is brown, it's still custard-like in the middle (and you can taste the rum), unlike the mini-canelés. This should tide me over as far as homemade until Friday, when I plan to make carob brownies (tomorrow, I want to run to Ginza for patisserie cake).

I should also mention that I had another chocolate from Henri le Roux that was excellent, this time the Goma (sesame), which is seasonal. Haven't had a bad one yet, though I have avoided the coffee ones and stuck to the dark coated chocolate ones. I'll do milk chocolate before coffee.

Henri le Roux (Tokyo Midtown): Kouign Amann Yuzu Matcha

Took a short run to Tokyo Midtown for the first time in a long while to visit the Henri Le Roux there, where they have kouign amann. Round trip, it's only about 6 km total, and was on the low side of 9 km/h (I don't count the vertical distance from using the pedestrian overpass twice, which is about 40 steps high). As the seasonal flavor, they just changed over to the Yuzu Matcha (powdered green tea). These are small but only 324 yen. This one was only okay. I might have gone with "good", but I was not fond of the green tea aftertaste. The yuzu was particularly detectable over the caramel taste. On the other hand, I count this as a pastry, so it does not penalize them as a great cake shop.

More importantly, I've been wrong about them: they do have cake at the Midtown store (although getting it before it sells out is a separate issue), which of course they do: they have an eat-in space. This evening, they only had one cake left around 19:30, but I should have noticed before that they have cake (the hard part is not noticing, it's retaining any memory after running). The more important information for me is they have a supposedly exclusive cake there that is only available as eat in (and is 900+ yen), so I'll definitely go back. I was planning to go to Midtown for dining over the next holiday weekend already, but I'm going to want to change the target now to them.

Tomorrow is baking, although it might just be canele to free up some eggs whites, though really I want brownies: too many competing recipes.

Au Bon Vieux Temps, Zephyr

Cycled to Au Bon Vieux Temps for cake again. This time I got Zephyr, which was 702 yen. The top is chocolate cream with alcohol, which both seem to be a specialties of theirs. The bottom is a steamed/baked mascarpone cheese and brown sugar (had to look up "vergeoise" from the Japanese phonetic French) cheesecake, which was almost nutty in texture. This cake is excellent, so I chose well again. That chocolate stick should be on top, though.

Being greedy, I continued on to Limevert, because I hadn't forgotten that they had a bostock (for 380 yen), but it wasn't really the type I like. I like double-baked, somewhat thick, but this was thin and rum-soaked with lots of sliced almonds (a large amount of almonds slid off even before I got it; it's not very stable ). It was still good.

Didn't do a good job of staying on the best path, so it ended up being 34 km of cycling, which is a couple more than I planned. My leg seems okay, but now my arm isn't too happy, so I may need to limit that.

I should mention sometime that I've had the Venezuelan Noir chocolate from Henri le Roux (I've given up on photographing them), and it was excellent, like their other chocolates. Now I want to get to Tokyo midtown to try the their new Kouign Amann flavor, lime.

Origines Cacao: Bacchus

As planned, I did not run this weekend. Instead, I baked a new cake recipe that I had been collecting ingredients for and did my first cycling for a long time. My knee seems to be okay for it.

The ride was out to Jiyugaoka to Origines Cacao to check whether they are "near-great" and ended up being about a 26 km round trip. I timed the first part was doing about 14 km/h, trying to go the equivalent of a walk as far as effort. It gives me a benchmark. Supposedly wind resistance makes speeding up on a bicycle more difficult for running, which I don't know how I'll handle, but I'm treating this as the equivalent of one-fourth the 7 km/h running distance, as far as my budget (I'm rescaling my budget to 7 km/h running from 6 km/h walking, though that information is not so useful to anyone else).

At Origines Cacao, I struggled to find something that looked good that I hadn't had, so I went with the promoted new one, Bacchus, for 594 yen, which is a chocolate cake with cognac and apricot. It's good, being layers of soft sponge with liquor and chocolate frosting, but maybe because chocolate layer cake is too much like what I've had plenty of in the US, it's not really so exciting. Sorry, it was so bright, I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of (and I forgot the shop again, as usual).

This is not the cake I'm looking for, so Origines Cacao goes back in the "excellent" list. That only leaves me five near-greats, whereas I wanted at least doubt the great, of which currently I have four, although if Dalloyau dropped a level, that would work out, so I keep working on the bottom of the near-greats until I get them up to where I want (half the number of cakes of the greats) before I try to update them.

At least the croissant from Au Bon Vieux Temps was excellent. They have delicious looking baked goods, but I don't think I've gotten anything before.

I also got another chocolate from Henri le Roux on Saturday, Madagascar: This was was excellent too.

Learned/got experience with a lot in my last cake attempt, Essor, I think it's called (I don't have the page with the real French name, just the phonetic Japanese). There was nothing that I did well, but I got the general idea about several parts. The result was pretty ugly, so no photos and I ate the evidence.

Essor has two layers of hazelnut biscuit, which was okay, but a little underdone because I used an upside-down tart form on top of a silicon mat because I don't have a 14.4 cm diameter round Flexipan (nor am I able to find out how I could get one, since even the company doesn't list that size, though it would probably would be about 5000 yen, which is more than I want to pay). For the (gelatin) hazelnut Bavarian cream disk, I completely failed to whipped up the cream, and splattered most of it around the kitchen: the new balloon whisk with the new mixer is proving difficult to use. However, it tasted good, and wasn't overly gummy (though would be different with more and proper whipped cream). This time I needed a 12.5 cm Flexipan (also unavailable), so I used a right-side-up one with some plastic wrap, which was a little leaky but worked well enough. The　(gelatin) orange concentrate and liquor layer, whose phonetic French name I can't figure out besides the orange part, really didn't like my substitute for the 12.5 cm Flexipan and broke into pieces when I tried to separate it from the form bottom (also, I had to boil down my first attempt and try again, as the gelatin and concentrate separated during freezing). This was gummy and too strong to sample by itself, but actually was fine in the cake, except for being ugly. Finally, I had to submerge/embed these layers in creme chocolat-blanc d'orange, again with a little gelatin; I tried chilling everything, but still had a splatter problem, so I did it by hand and didn't whip it enough (I don't really know what 6-minute whip looks like). The 15 cm ring form, which I did buy, leaked, but that might be due to the cream being too thin. It formed a solid cake okay and was good, though I'm not really that interested in cake that tastes that orange, so I won't be trying this again. I still have some orange concentrate, but maybe I'll use it and the liquor for macaron filling. Very educational, though. Now I just need to learn to whip cream, since it's half the next cake, Gateau Fraise.

Igrekplus [Marunouchi]: Meilleur

Walked 6 km to get some Rose syrup (though perhaps could have gotten somewhere else), and then to Ygrekplus where I got Meilleur(e/s/es) for 600 yen. As the name (as I'm guessing) suggests, this looked like the best I could do there. It has tonka beans, which seem to be popular now, and I could taste them and they added to the texture, but did not make it more than a standard frosted chocolate layer cake, although the top was fudge-like rather than a buttercream frosting. I did not have any particular recommendation for the shop, so this was just a matter of making sure I wad not overlooking anything in Marunouchi, which is relatively convenient for jogging. The cake was good, I suppose, but I would rather eat other things, so I don't expect to ever be back.

The 6 km there was about 6 km/h, and the 6 km back was about 5 km/h, walking. Parking for the Marunouchi Building seems problematic and anywhere, it was threatening rain, so I didn't take the bicycle. That experiment will have to wait for another time. Could be Thursday, but only the weather forecast changes

I forgot to blog that I tried Henri le Roux's Sarrasine chocolate, which has, I think, ganache made with soba-infused cream. Like other chocolates I've had from there, it was excellent.

Walking to Limevert: Mer

Had a half day off today, so walked to Limevert patisserie café, which took about 13 km at I guess 5 km/h (had trouble with starting and stopping chronometer correctly), sometimes in heavy rain (tｙphoon pasｓing through tonight). Happy keeping it slow, as I want to work on my distance before trying again to regain some speed. Managed to follow the correct route in the middle for once going to this area.

The end is easy, because I'm following the elevated train line for several stations. Never can remember the station name (Soshigaya-ohkura), but recognize Ultraman (not sure what the connection is, and there's at least one more in Yokohama).

Shop does not really stand out and is narrow, but they have the usual stuff and pastries. Already ordered the canelé (230 yen) for the road before noticing the bostock (which would have been hard to eat neatly walking down the street), but it was good (it was a well-baked one, which I like over soft ones).

The Mer (550 yen) is various things: earl grey flavo(u)red milk chocolate, apricot gelatin, and caramel walnuts. It was definitely excellent and I'm going to call it great because I haven't had one this before and I'd like to have it again. For good or bad, the flavor makes me think of pie. For one thing, it's not very firm, but it took a while to bring it back. Not sure what the connection to the "Sea" is.

Almost forgot, tried a couple more caramels from Henri le Roux yesterday: Citron Vert (lime) and Diable Rose (banana, raspberry, and passion fruit). Very good candy and it's interesting to taste very good candy, but I prefer the chocolates.

Frédéric Cassel: Mille-feuille Vanille Mexico

No surprise, that last weekend was probably too much and I was sorer than I wanted to be, so rested yesterday and tried to keep it slower: 5.5 km/h for 5 km out (then walking underground), and 5 km/h for 3.8 km coming back (didn't count after the supermarket).

The cake was, as planned, I got the Mille-feuille Vanille Mexico from Frédéric Cassel at Ginza Mitsukoshi for 777 yen. It's vanilla mascarpone cream in their standard mille-feuille form, and though I always want a stronger vanilla taste, this was creamy and delicious mille feille, and ultimately great: I want it again.

Yesterday, I had another chocolate from Henri le Roux, the Noisetine Noir, which was excellent.

Henri le Roux: chocolates

Little sore, but hope special midweek afternoon walk still okay, at least 5 km/h. No cake or running, but got two chocolates from Henri le Roux. These were both excellent, so I'm beginning to see the appeal but have my hands full focusing on fresh cake: Praliné a L'ancienne, which is crunchy amond and hazelnut homemade style praliné in dark chocolate, and Soizig, which is Bretagne buckwheat flour biscuit with homemade-style praliné in dark chocolate, each for 324 yen. Can't choose between them. 
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Homemade dessert assembles cheesecake tartlette, chocolate ganache (from macaron), and whipped cream (from the rest of the cream for the ganache).

Sunday & Monday: Isetan

Left leg still having a problem,  so did not go far. Actually seemed okay for walking until just now: not happy from sitting in front of TV, but seemed pretty okay going out for shopping today. I'll see whether I want to walk somewhere tomorrow. Hand is somewhat better, but I need to stop using it so much still.

Yesterday, got Blueberry from Shiseido Parlour for 561 yen. It is cheese/yogurt mousse cake. It's good, but not special.

Today I got Duja for 623 yen, which is chocolate and hazelnut, but I ate it without letting it cool back down enough in the refrigerator first. Hard season for cake lovers, so it was good, but not more than that. I'd like to try again under better conditions.

Same goes for an Henri le Roux Dauphinois (also hazelnut praline and chocolate) chocolate from yesterday, because I'm a slow learner, though there I made the mistake of not getting ice. 

Shima: Paris Framboise

Rushing thru congested sidewalks in Yotsuya, went too fast: 2.3 km out at 5'30''-6'10''/km pace, which counts as 3.45 km of my budgeted 12 km of 6'10-7'/km, and 2.2 km back just under 7'/km. Need to work on my pacing.

To P. Shima (in Kojimachi) for Paris Framboise, which has nuts (supposedly; must be paste or cream) and puff pasty layers top and bottom, as well as raspberry, for 540. Like mille-feuille, cream tends to squeeze out if one tries to cut through from top, but still excellent, like the shop so far. Raspberry delicious without being overwhelming.

Yesterday, no running, but tried a C.B.S. chocolate from Henri le Roux, for 324 yen. Excellent caramel chocolate.

Running and not quite cake from Henri le Roux

After trying to get 乳化気泡剤 at Takashimaya (they looked and didn't act like it was a crazy request, although Google thinks it's a typo for 乳化起泡剤), I went home and changed into running clothes---and actually ran, for the first time in more than 3 weeks and longer than I've run in at several weeks (which ended badly). Not sure how far I ran, but I ran 20 minutes in intervals of 1 minute separated by 1 minute of running, so I'll call it 2.5 km. Probably, 16 minutes would have been enough, but I'm okay for now (except my left arm is telling me maybe it was too soon yesterday for doing even a little light strength training, but that's not the fault of running). Not sure what my limit should be. I had been thinking 5 km in a week last time I tried to start, but I do that much not slow walking on a typical day, so I could probably start with 10 km, but 20 km would definitely be the limit and I'm going to ramp up slower than ever before in both speed and distance, if I get the chance. Still, did you know that the

The not quite cake was a Kouign Amann, which I consider a pastry. They have them at Midtown Tokyo, for 324 yen, and each one has a caramel in the center. I've only had great ones (not sure if that exactly corresponds to great cake). Previously, I've had the chocolate and C.B.S. (salted butter caramel), which they always have, so this time I got the third, which was Pina Colada, despite the visible coconut. It too was great.

Kototoi History and Culture course, Toshi Yoroizuka

Got up about 6:45, but had some things to do, so I didn't get out until 8:00. That turned out to be a little late for getting back by 13:00, but was was home for the gas check, so no problem.

Today's course was the Kototoi H&C course, although I also confirmed a correction to the Senju course. There were some corrections to the Kototoi course, too, although mostly in terms of which side of the street to be on. I ended doubling back a couple times, including the doubling back, just because part 2 meets part 3 partway in, so if you want to do both in full in one direction, you have to double back.

The first part is is named the Shitaya 'Related Day' Walk, where a related day is a special day for that particular shrine.  This was fine and fairly short, 1.89 km on my map. The second part is the Sanja Festival/Bokutei Walk, which has a few problems. First, it's definitely a walk, not a run, and it goes into Sensou Temple up the main street, Nakamise Street, which is lined with venders and only for walking. In front of the temple, you turn right and head for Sumida River and go through a park there. However, the area where the path goes through is under construction. It looks like they'll be making a nice new path, but now you have take a detour, and I went a few hundred meters beyond the turn looking for a way through before deciding to go back instead, being able to see through gaps that Sakura (Cherry Tree) Bridge, an X-shaped pedestrian bridge, was open and that people were getting to it from the south along the levee. Even doubling back, I didn't really do the whole part at that time (I picked up the last bit on the main return) because I didn't continue beyond the levee on the east side, whereas the actual end was on the far side of the road running next to the levee. For part 3, which is the Sumida River-Seven Lucky Gods Walk, I had to first double back over Sakura Bridge and down to a different regular bridge, or rather, beyond that where there is a marker telling you where to split from part 2. After crossing the regular bridge, I had to go further than I expected, and found that I was on the wrong side (though not a big problem under the bridge), but then proceeded up the road next to the levee on the wrong side before spotting a marker on the other side and doubling back  2 or 3 hundred meters. There's a small side trip past shrines and parks, mostly this walk goes up the main road, although it's not bad as main roads go: I didn't mind using it coming back, although I used a parallel neighborhood road for about a fourth of that stretch.

On the way back, I first went to Mitsukoshi, which I saw they had actual canelé forms: 1500 yen for stainless steel and 3000 yen for copper. Didn't buy one. The brioche forms they had were 8 cm, whereas I was thinking that mine were 7.5 cm, so I decided not to buy any additional ones

Next, I stopped a Matsuya to remind myself what cake shops they had.

In Ginza, I stopped at Le Chocolat de H and they seemed to have only the café eat-in chocolate tart, not take-out cake. So I tried.

Next, by a not very well-chosen route, I got to Tokyo Midtown (east), and went ti Toshi Yoroizuka and got their "Most popular", which is usually not a good sign. It's not necessarily a bad sign, just I'm only interested in what is most popular among people who come in and buy one piece of cake (which is presumably for themselves). It is the John Pierre (sp?) for 580 yen.

I checked Henri le Roux, and so that their third (besides chocolate and salt caramel) kouign-amann flavor was green tea, whereas I was hoping for lemon. Wasn't mentally prepared for green tea cake, so I decided to give it a pass today. I'm willing to try it another time.

My estimate on my running was 9.8 km of slow and 25 km of very slow. I'll have to review whether I should do any running tomorrow. I've already got a least a little more than last week, so I could rest Sunday and start the next week of running on Monday. Of course, I could still do that if I only run a little on Sunday (and get cake at Isetan, for example).

The John Pierre got a little banged up from running (it's light and I was tired, so I didn't do a good job of keeping it steady), but I was able to reassemble it. It's chocolate mousse with pistachio. The mousse is pretty light and the cake was definitely good, but not exciting or special.

Still, I'm reasonably satisfied. Still, it motivates me to do some baking. I'm interested in bostock (but still haven't looked up a recipe to see whether I am interested enough to try to make it) and financier (ditto), but think I'd like to just back brownies next, although more of my flattish canelé would be nice, too (although a different kind of trouble). I have a lot of eggs, so should/want to make something.

Thu-Sat: Henri le Roux [Isetan]

Got a box of caramels from Henri le Roux Isetan basement, since I had someone to share them with and I've already had all four of their "cakes" and this is the shop of the only caramélier (since he made up the term and trademarked it, reportedly). These are 162 yen each, regardless of how how many you buy.

Caramels are no substitute for cake, but they were very good. I would say that the C.B.S (Caramel au Buerre Salé) is the best, but the Chocolat and Framboise (raspberry) are also excellent if you like those flavors, and I found that I did. The Orange Gingembre (ginger) was also good, but I was not as into it, so it just seemed like candy to me. They have other flavors for caramels, although I might try their chocolates next if I feel a need to visit here again to keep up with the other great shops.

Henri le Roux and nonstop running 1/1 intervals

Got the fourth and last Henri le Roux cake type from Henri le Roux, Isetan. Need to get back to Henri le Roux Midtown for the Kouign Amann that I haven't had, since the two I had there were great.

For running, I went back to the unfinished loop of yesterday's run and continued the non-stop run. This time, inspired by a friend, I did 1 min/1 min intervals for an hour (as you can imagine, my ability to run all out was short lived, but I did continue to put out effort) and then did a normal run home.

The cake was Paris-Brest C.B.S. (caramel beurre sel) for 540 yen. Which is basically a round salted caramel éclair. It was excellent but I can't say great, either because I'm less impressed the second time around after having an éclair last time or maybe because I liked the chocolate better than the caramel. It still has a nougatine topping, more actually, and the cream filling has their specialty C.B.S.