Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Mille-feuille Chocolat over Frédéric Cassel's Mont Blanc Jewel

Sunday was a big day for running and cake. First, after doing my indoor workout, I ran to Ginza Mitsukoshi and got both cakes for the cake-off; Mille Feuille Chocolat from Jean-Paul Hévin and Mont Blanc Jewel from Frédéric Cassel. This was a third-round cake-off between two one-and-one seasonal cakes (the JPH for just 2 weeks this time but probably FC's will stick around through Christmas, I would imagine, but I'm not sure).

For running, I made my fourth attempt at running the Daita--Daizawa--Hatagaya--Kamiyama-chou--Kitazawa--Motoyoyogi-chou--Nishihara--Ooyama-chou--Shouto--Tomigaya--Uehara loop from memory, which is about 22 km long, plus a few kilometers to get there and the few kilometers that I had already run to Ginza. On the way, I noticed that I was in the right time window and there wasn't a huge line at Haritts Donuts & Coffee in Uehara, so I stopped (and waited for a couple people ahead of me) and got, I think, the Choco Plain (Donut), which despite being plain, has sugar (but not icing) on it. This is a very lightly fried, very spongy donut, though not as course a sponge as a typical yeast donut and definitely an improvement on various other donut shops, but not so exciting that I need a return trip.

Despite haven't gotten more than half way the first three attempts and making another course change that I never done even in early bicycle attempts, I was able to do it clockwise. Real time was just over 3 hours, which isn't bad considering stops (the longest to wade through the crowd to get to a shop near Shimo-Kitazawa station and back to take a picture for a site on a future side loop). I'll probably try counterclockwise next weekend, since I have three days.

The cake-off was somewhat anticlimactic. Like the previous round with the Mont Blanc Jewel, I couldn't sense why I had originally put it on the list (probably because at the time it was a mont-blanc with most of the chestnut task masked by fruit), so the Mille Feuille Chocolat, which was definitely better, wins and the Mont Blanc Jewel gets demoted to semi-great, which is still a high rating. Not sure what new cakes next month will bring out, but if nothing else, I can do what might be the last third-round of two-time winners.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Mille-Feuille Chocolat over Pierre Gagnaire's Finger Ruby Fig Framboise

Tomida Farm Black Fig Tart

I finally had the cake-off that I've been looking forward to for almost two months: a second-round match for Jean-Paul Hévin's Mille-Feuille Chocolat, which is available just the second half of October. It lost its first round, so I needed someone from the losers bracket. Fortunately, I was able to get one available two weeks ago in the form of Pierre Gagnaire's Finger Ruby Fig Framboise (according to the I saw today). I ran for the first cake. I had brought an insulated bag, but they use such large boxes that it was not enough. I remember that there was one place like that, but not which one. I went directly from there running to Ginza Mitsukoshi, arriving a little before opening. I wasn't at the front, but I was the first one through the desert section, which was awkward, given my attire and that each group of attendants have to greet me. JPH is in the back, in their own glass-walled room. The mille-feuille was available, as promised. On the way back, I was walking past Frédéric Cassel and saw that their fig tart I had just seen advertised was bakery type rather than cake. I had planned to get a pastry during my run but this seemed like a better option, so I turned and bought the Tomida Farm Black Fig Tart. Turning, I think someone said, "As expected", as they thought I was there for that, though I had passed them initially. I had seen the social media post, though, so I recognized it, just it was on top rather than in the cake case and they recommended heating it up "a little" (they checked, but they didn't have any more precise information). I tried 2.5 min at 100 degC, which seemed reasonable and warmed it without destroying it. It was excellent, as I would expected.

Running, I tried to do the

neighborhood course Daita--Daizawa--Hatagaya--Kamiyama-chou--Kitazawa--Motoyoyogi-chou--Nishihara--Ooyama-chou--Shouto--Tomigaya--Uehara loop, but I hadn't reviewed it the night before (if I really knew it, I shouldn't have to). I got farther than last time, but I had changed part and though I remembered why and where to turn initially, and then where I logically had to go next, I wasn't sure how to get back on the old track, so the run out ended after Mister Donut Shimokitazawa. Like last time, I took that as an excuse to turn home. I went by the shortest route, and ran into a shrine I hadn't known about between where I screwed up this time and where I did the previous time, so the map is changing again. Hope I can remember later this time, or at least remember to check the map the night before (on the day would be against the rules).

Just before failure,

I had bought a France Croissant from Chez Lui. Not sure about the name, but it's their #1 item, supposedly, and it looked sufficiently sugared to be preferable to a real croissant. I hadn't packed enough energy cookies for the run, or this would have been one pastry more than I had intended for the week. I deviated coming back to take some pictures of sites on more nearby loops, or confirm that the site was not needed (in one case).

For the cake off, I'm still having trouble with the strong fruitiness of the Finger Ruby Fig Framboise, despite at the same time wanting to keep it around for its distinctiveness. The mixture of mille-feuille and high-quality chocolate made be choose JPH's cake as the winner, so I definitely want to do another cake-off with it next weekend, this time a third-round for cakes that are one and one. There's a seasonal Frédéric Cassel cake that meets that criterion.

Cake-off: Sadaharu Aoki's Noisettine Chocolat over Jean-Paul Hévin's Mille-feuille Chocolat

Today a typhoon is passing over the main island of Japan (it's noisy now here), so maybe that was why the streets were extremely empty Sunday morning. I think they must of close Sophia University and the church in front of it, because without even trying I made the next light after passing through the Yotsu-Mitsuke intersection, which never happens, because there's usually about a hundred people in the way any time I'm running that way.

My running goal was to get to Ginza Mitsukoshi for the Mille-feuille Chocolat at Jean-Paul Hévin, maybe on the last possible day, after discovering it secretly (as far as not finding anything notice on their website) over there. I wanted to do a first-round cake-off, so I choose the nearest shop to match it (there is a typhoon coming, so I wanted to get home before the rain started up again) and got the recently enjoyed Noisettine Chocolat from Sadaharu Aoki in Marunouchi (I was early and quick enough at Ginza Mitsukoshi, that I actually had to wait several minutes for Sadaharu Aoki to open.

These are two heavy cakes, so I went out for a couple hours running and walking (in about equal measure) to places that I didn't have photos for on the neighborhood course map. Took about a dozen, found that a couple places showing up on Google Maps weren't permanent places, like a Dars (chocolate brand) shop in Omotesando Hills. Led to lots of revisions of courses, including creating a couple new little loops for access to some new shops.

Both the Mille-feuille Chocolat and Noisettine Chocolat remained definitely great. It was hard to choose between them, since they are both unique and amazing, but I really like noisettine and chocolate, so Sadaharu Aoki gets the win. The Mille-feuille Chocolat remains my top priority for a second-round cake-off, if it shows up at another shop. I'm going to be patrolling regularly.

A two cake-off weekend, so only two cakes for the week (probably both from Isetan, if they still have last month's Isetan exclusive for Sadaharu Aoki; otherwise, Marunouchi has two exclusives through next month, and maybe Tokyo Midtown still has the matcha cream puff). That's okay. I'll take a rest one day and get something besides fresh cake from a couple local shops two days.

Ryoura: Mille-feuille Chocolat

Under my updated patisserie hierarchy, Ryoura was the other potentially quite excellent shop I needed more samples from, besides Limevert, which I visited yesterday. Ryoura does not have a café space, so I also needed to stop somewhere for a snack in order avoid gobbling down the cake under poor outdoor conditions.

Usually I would go around Shibuya Station area (for good reasons of crowds, [decade-long] construction projects, and car-oriented roads), but I wanted to confirm that the Limevert counter at Hikarie, across from the station, does not have fresh cake, which I did, and noted that Pierre Hermé and Sadakaru Aoki both did now, so I added them to the map.

Due to the current state of construction projects, the southeast pedestrian bridge is less direct and narrower than ever, so I regretted not using some other strategy to cross. I skipped the southwest bridge and went around, although that bridge is fairly direct, so it might have been better just to use it. Even with all that, total time to get from my start to P. Bigarreaux was 1 hour to the second, according to my chronometer, and my speed was 11 km/h for 11 km and faster than the first part of yesterday's run. There, I got the Croissant aux Almondes au Chocolate (400 yen); it was great, with both almond paste and chocolate inside, chocolate drizzled outside, and baked to be hard on the outside (some almond croissant are soft and flat compared to a regular croissant and some avoid this but have an almost deep-fried outside, so this was the latter type). It was great pasty, but what a calorie bomb, with both sugar and fat. Half would have probably been enough, but for a 23 km run, it was perfect fuel (plus I ate my normal breakfast about 1.5 hours before starting).

From there, I went the short distance to Ryoura, but I made the mistake of trying to take back streets, so not so direct. Coming back, I had to swing by Bigarreaux again because I had forgotten my other purpose there, to check whether they had either of the great cakes I had had there previously (unfortunately, not; they are big on having a rotating lineup); from there I stayed on the main road when it headed toward the north end of the Shibuya Station, where perhaps the most famous Japanese pedestrian scramble is. Too crowded, of course, and the same pretty much all the way past Omotesando. My speed was 10 km/h for 12 km, but still slightly faster than the second half of yesterday's run.

The cake was Mille-feuille Chocolat (500 yen), which seemed like a good idea in my running-addled selection state, since I like both the flavor and the type, but really chocolate and custard are both much better than chocolate custard, or at least in this realization. I'll say it was good, since the mille-feuille was good and it wasn't so bad as chocolate custard goes.

So, end of another week, where am I in terms of running and patisseries? Running, I broke 100 km for the week for the first time since restarting my training, though I was running pretty slow: I never even got up to 12 km/h, so I did only about 85 km of 12 km/h-eq. running, which is only a 5% increase from two weeks ago. My current plan for next week would have me running less than 90 km raw to reach about the same amount as 12 km/h-eq, though I'm going to have to revise that plan now that Ryoura has dropped out as next Sunday's destination.

On the Patisserie side, supreme Jean-Paul Hévin doesn't have anything new unless I'm willing to pay double+ to get unneeded chocolat chaud, which I've decided is unwarranted. Quite superb Dalloyau definitely needs a visit soon, even without it's recent win in the last cake-off. Ryoura drops out of the quite excellent group, so I moved up Bigarreaux and Toshi Yoroizuka, which I have deeper histories with, but one will eventually have to go unless Limevert fails next week. The Toshi Toshizuka will be one source for my next cake-off, though I'm not sure when I'll get to that: I probably should do another cake-less run to prepare for it, since 6 km Friday is really just half a normal run; I need to call ahead to get them to hold me a piece and then get to Isetan for the competition, so I need planning, but I don't have that much control over my day-to-day overtime work hours. Limevert is still potentially a quite excellent shop, but under-visited, so I need to get back there next weekend for a fifth cake, this time by a longer more comfortable route, say by swinging south through Aoyama Cemetery, coming back along Meguro River, and taking the green path that picks up where the above-ground river begins to get up to Umegaoka and follow the train line again. Among the excellent shops, I need a second visit to Heritage, but that requires a no-overtime day on a Monday, Tuesday, or Friday, which is going to be tough this week, and I also want a second cheesecake from Morozoff, for a training run day. Since I don't need to get back to Ryoura this weekend, I can use one weekend run for a new shop (or at least one I haven't blogged yet). If I don't manage to get to some completely new shop during the week (such as Pierre Gagnaire, which is easy but I haven't actually gotten an recommendations on it), I'll maybe finally go out to Toni Coni, which has been on my radar for a while. Otherwise, maybe Yukinoshita, just to get it off the list of places to blog about. Either would be shorter than going back to Ryoura, so I'll have room maybe to make some side visits or take a more comfortable/safe/interesting route over the most direct route.

Jean-Paul Hévin: Mille Feuille Chocolat

No running, but really hot, so I'm worried about tomorrows run (although I'll finish before when I went out for cake). Went for some definitely great cake at Jean-Paul Hévin (Isetan takeaway) and chose Mille Feuille Chocolat for 882 yen, which is great cake and big, so the price is to some extent reasonable. Not much to say: it's chocolate Mille Feuille. It's marked new on the web site, but they've had chocolate mille feuille before, just not continuously. My eating strategy was to turn it on its side and patiently saw through the layers with a knife a I ate, which worked fine, although I still needed my thumb to hold it is place.