Cake-off: Mont-Blanc Jewel over Mont-Poire Yuzu

View of south center of Hibiya Park

Started off by running to Mitsukoshi in Ginza to get there near opening time so that I could get both cakes for a cake-off: Mont-Poire Yuzu from Jean-Paul Hévin and Mont-Blanc Jewel from Frédéric Cassel. It wasn't too hot going, but was heating up coming back. I saw some people with "staff" shirts, so there was probably some sort of specific running event along the inner moat coarse, but since there would always be a lot of people on it Sunday morning, I think, there did not seem to be that much of an effect. I walked underground from the corner of Hibiya Park, so the running was less than 5 km each way, 11 km/h going and 9 km/h coming back.

Before eating my cake, I went out to do more month survey of other shops looking for seasonal great cakes but did not find the two tarts I was looking for at Paris S'éveille and Ryoura. It was about a 30 km ride.

Both cakes were great and reminded me that eating great cake is the goal, so I should balance out trying new cakes with enjoying known ones. It's hard to choose between these two. They are both mainly chestnut, but fairly different. The FC give a dense cake with cassis (currant) for flavor on a dense butter (? still haven't studied how to make different kinds of tarts so much, beyond the crusts) tart, whereas JPH flavors with pear and yuzu and has very light whipped cream in the middle on a very light meringue base. Different, but both great. In the end, I thought the cassis flavoring was more effective, but I hope to have the pear and yuzu again next year.

Jean-Paul Hévin: Mont-Poire Yuzu

No running but got some cake from Jean-Paul Hévin, Mont-Poire Yuzu for 635 yen, along with the regular Mont-Blanc again, and Tablette Géante Noir for 523 yen, both without tax.

The cake was great. The newly posted one, Mont-Poire Yuzu, has yuzu-flavored pear pure and was great, despite not having the thick almond meringue base. The tablet chocolate, which has big hazelnuts was good, but wasn't really needed.