Akane: Specialisté

Could leave home until about 2 pm, so I went some place new (relative to blogging), which means that they would have something that I haven't had. I cycled, because it was above 30 degC, though cloudy. It's about 12 km, so not so far, in Ota-ku. Unfortunately, this south area remains somewhere that I never need to go. There were other customers buying a smoothie before me and cookies after me (and something else in a bag that I suppose could have been a cake). I got the "Specialisté", which is a rare cheese cake with a little pineapple and I think the other fruit was peach. The cake is unique, as it was much closer to soft cheese than any cake I've ever had before (versus a cheese mousse), sort of gelatinous in a cheese-like way. Also, it looks like it has a mini-macaron on top, but it was actually an unexpectedly hard cookie. Or maybe it was normal rare cheese cake that sat around too long, but it seems unlikely that they are that incompetent, as they've stayed open for a number of years now.

The fruit was nice and the cheesecake did not taste bad but not good, so I'll just label it okay. I regret not getting something else, though the choices of cake were few and not exciting: traditional gateau chocolate, a mousse/cream chocolate cake that looked promising but was banana (never a good sign), and a Mont-Blanc. Didn't notice a shortcake, to fill out the standards, but maybe it was sold out.

La Splendeur: Praliné Chocolat

Not a very active weekend, in terms of running and cake. Friday night, I had an event to attend so no running, just hotel-catered (I assume) mixed fruit shortcake, which is bland/inoffensive by design (if anyone objects to a particular fruit, they could pick it off).

Saturday, I ran during a window of opportunity in my schedule when a shop that would not be available on a weekday should have been open but not yet sold out (I could also have tried to run somewhere late in the afternoon). Unfortunately, La Famille choose that day to open late (14:00, as announced by the paper sign on the door), and I couldn't wait. I could have grabbed something at Seibu nearby, but I could do that on a weekday and it was not great weather for running with cake, anyway, so I decided to just cache 1 unbought cake for the next cake-off (probably Thursday).

For Sunday, which was also hot, I decided to do cycling instead. First, I went down to new shop for me, La Splendeur, in Kugahara, Ota-ku, for a first cake. There were a few parfait-like desserts, which is probably not unreasonable for the season, but only three fresh cakes. On the other hand, none were the basic Japanese staples (shortcake, mont-blanc, and some sort of milk chocolate layer wedge cake). Anyway, selection was limited but showed some effort, the shop was pleasant, and the service was good.

The cake was also good. Besides decorations, the chocolate was the sponge base and the outer mousse and the praliné was cream inside. Not disappointing, but not interesting or good enough to get me back there until in the short or medium term.

From there, I did a tour of 6 non-workday shops and Paris S'éveille to check whether any great seasonal cakes had appeared or other great cakes had disappeared. Basically, I confirmed all the same cakes as last month, including this time Monsieur Arnaud, which was missing when I visited on Tuesday late afternoon.

Saturday (2nd shop), Maison de petit four: "vague"

I did reconnaissance for next week in the Oyamadai to Jiyuugaoka stretch and stopped in some great shops but found that I was satisfied enough that I didn't want to wait (they were all busy on a Saturday afternoon). However, I swung through Isetan on the way to the 100 yen shop to stock up on yogurt, bananas, tofu, and some cheap snacks because I realized that I had not checked on the visiting cake shop of the week, which was a new one to me, Maison de petit four. I got the vague (or that's what the name looks like to me and their website doesn't list the little cakes). By coincidence (because Tokyo is a really small city), I jogged right past it today without noticing it (I wasn't noticing a lot by that point) when I was jogging along the Nomikawa (a river). I had jogged only the end part of this before where the river is buried and it's just a trail with a narrow park down the middle, but this time I jogged most of it, probably as much as you want to bother. It seemed a good place to jog, without not too much difficulty continuing without major detours or waits for cross-traffic.

Anyway, it's obviously chocolate cake. Supposedly it has bittersweet chocolat ganache. My impression was that it was a little watery, an impression that I've had before with chocolate cake. I'm not sure what it signifies, since it is not literally wet. Maybe the cake is very low fat or something, so it lacks richness. I don't know if I'll give them a second chance: they've got three more days at Isetan. Too bad, because I don't know any other shops down in Ota-ku.