Cake-off: Sadaharu Aoki's Moelleux Chocolat over Toshi Yoroizuka's Monsieur Kitano

Saturday, ran to Tokyo Midtown to get a Moelleux for a second-round cake-off, and was surprised to see Monsieur Kitano (the cake) at Toshi Yoroizuka there. It's not convenient to take a train home from there, so I ran. I stopped at SweetsHolic, along the Minami-Aoyama south loop of my neighborhood course for the first time and got a Chocolate Chip Cookie. I put away the cake and ate lunch and cookie first. It was hard, as I was warned, but that was find with me, and a great improvement on the near-raw one I had recently in Harujuku.

Then I went out by bicycle to finish up photographing sites along the main Hiroo loop of my course, which actually didn't take long, relative to other projects. Then I went down to Jiyuugaoka to check what the line-up was at Dalloyau, but nothing I'm looking for. I would have checked out Paris S., but it was late on a Saturday and there was a huge line, so my expectation of useful information, as well as my patience, was insufficient for the wait and I went home, stopping at Bien E. to verify that they had nothing new this weekend.

The cake-off of chocolate versus chocolate went find. This time they gave me an explanation sheet, and I had already planned to microwave the Moelleux, so I was really comparing a different cake. It could have been warmer, but I'm not sure that I don't prefer it cold. I like moelleux but not so interested in fondant, maybe. However, though was still interesting, so excellent seems reasonable, I wasn't feeling the greatness from Monsieur Kitano, so it's getting retired from the list. The Moelleux will have to remain undefeated for now, unless they manage to hold it over until Friday, which is longer than the announced plan (but they aren't ones for wasting cake, so they will probably keep it going until they're all gone, so I'll try to check in before I get something else).

Toshi Yoroizuka: Monsieur Kitano

After a couple-day cake-fast, I ran to Midtown Toshi Yoroizuka and they had a pretty good selection, including maybe three new cakes that I wouldn't mind trying. One was a chocolate mousse dome, Monsieur Kitano, which I took as a challenge, because these always look delicious but rarely are. This one was. Although it reflects a certain chocolate bias, a strong desire to recognize new great cakes after a poor showing last month, and appreciation of success where others have failed, this cake deserves to be eaten again, and that's what I call great. Note, I ate it coming straight from the cool box, or whatever that special programmable drawer next to the ice drawn was set on, and the ice pack from the shop was still in the box with the cake and frozen. The cream filling part was seasoned with Hanasanshou (Japanese pepper flower). There was also pink pepper involved in this cake, although the pepper was too subtle for me (I shouldn't have used hot pepper in my dinner right before). Rather than a weird biscuit or nut cluster in the middle (though there was a little nuts in the cake), there was a solid disk of chocolate to support the mousse and cream, and you can see there's a hard cookie-biscuit-type base, all good, so I approve the construction. 

Running was just a little over 6 km at just under 9 km/h, which is pretty good, given that I'm sore from yesterday and the sidewalk is narrow and a little crowded leading up to Midtown.