(Sa.) Cake-off: Éclat des Jours' Cheminée over Jean-Paul Hévin's Orly

Unfortunately, I was not fast enough with my cake-offs and JPH's Macaron Chocolat a l'Ancienne seems to have slipped away already. Instead, I switched to their Orly, although I on good authority that this one wasn't going anywhere this year, or at least until Dec. 23. I ran first to Ginza Mitsukoshi just to confirm the loss of the macaron cake. Since Orly is passion fruit and chocolate, I matched it up with Cheminée from Éclat des Jours, which is raspberry and chocolate. For various reasons (e.g., cake, health, and time), I used the train system coming back, except I walked from Otemachi to Ginza underground, which sort of wiped out a lot of those (I could have doubled back to Tokyo Station after getting the Orly, I just wanted to confirm the underground route to Ginza again.

Both cakes were still great a second time and I enjoyed them equally well, so I had to make a decision based on other factors. I'm giving the win to Chiminée on the grounds that pulled out a complicated combination or mousse, coating, and macaron, and also because JPH doesn't extra promotion, it's already the best shop.

I spent the afternoon taking pictures and the evening updating my map and making adjustments based on what I learned (running a course at night is one thing, but walking around in the day trying to find the sights that supposedly determine the course is another, and both are important).

Jean-Paul Hévin (ジャンポール エヴァン): Orly (オルリー) Place de l'Étoile (プラスドゥレトワール)

Orly

Sunday afternoon, I went to the Jean-Paul Hévin in Marunouchi, because they have cakes the other shops don't. Of the two, the favorite one was the Orly （オルリー, 592 yen + 8%), which is chocolate cake (of course) and mouse with passion fruit ganache. Great cake.

The other, which is promoted on their home page as a special, is Place de l'Étoile (プラスドゥレトワール, 592 yen + 8%), which has a sablé bottom, and layers of coffee-flavored dacquoise and chocolate mousse. I'm still not a fan of coffee (especially the aftertaste), but the balance was not bad and it was still excellent cake, even for me.

Place de l'Étoile

Still one more cake there that I haven't had (Voyage; maybe three are constant and one, now the Place de l'Étoile, get's rotated). In fairness, this should perhaps be considered a separate cake shop from the other JPH shops, since there seems to be no overlap in cakes, but the style and quality are similar.

Today's run was along the same theme, as I visited the shops in Omotesando and Tokyo Midtown to see whether they have special exclusive cakes. I'm not sure whether it's special, but they both had Safi, which I've not posted on. Not sure whether I can get it at Isetan (tried to check, but the line was long, though I can probably just ask the person manning the door without going in, or it might be on the chocolate bar menu), and I need to visit Ginza Mitsukoshi again and see what they have there. Total, I ran 9.2 km at about 9 km/h. I haven't really had a plan to this point, but I'd like a long (maybe 25 km, although that's a big jump, so maybe walk the last 5 km) this weekend. If I do it Saturday, that only leaves me a shortish training run and a Ginza run this week, although I don't really need to do more. However, maybe I should try hold off until Sunday for the long one, since I can do a shorter run Saturday (maybe to a new shop) and then the long run Sunday and then rest Monday. Tomorrow looks like rain, though, so it wouldn't bad to rest then in any case.