Long run to Frédéric Cassel for Mille-Feuille Caramel Pomme

Took the Shinjuku History and Culture course from the beginning of the Gaien Walk to as far as Akasaka Mitsuke along the Outer Moat Walk. I noticed that the on-site guide marker map indicates the Outer Moat Walk should climb up to the footpath parallel to the road after St. Ignatius Catholic Church, so I did. Also, running on the north side in front of Hotel New Otani causes a lot of delay from the stop lights, so I finally switched to the south side. Both changes made to the map. From there, I ran to cross Inner Moat Road and then did the imperial moat course one full lap and then to Hibiya. There was a running event of some kind going on, so people were standing with signs at the kilometer mark points (I joined just before the 4 kilometer point and the woman of the couple in front of me was surprised that the person holding the sign and cheering people to not give up was her mother), though it was only obvious that a few people were obviously participating (beyond the few hundred at the start/end point). Rather than go all the way to Ginza running, I decided to just stop at Hibiya and take the subway tunnels to Ginza Mitsukoshi (which is about 700 m).

The cake was the Mille-Feuille Caramel Pomme (ミルフィユキャラメルポム, 864 yen), which is a fairly normal mille-feuille with a layer of apple in the middle and some caramel taste. It was definitely good, but I can't call it excellent: I'm not interested in having it again, and also I didn't appreciate that the apple was surrounded by layers of sponge cake. In mile-feuille? There might be structural reasons why it could not have been surrounded by mille-feuille (puff) pastry, for example, or caramelized almond slices, which I would like, since keeping the layers from sliding was obviously an issue, but it just seemed wrong to me, even though it was too thin really to affect the texture much more than the apple already did.

Took the short route back to Lawson 100. Total, I ran 16.4 km, all three parts averaging 9 km/h. I'm feeling good. Maybe this week, I'll finally use up my budget enough to expand it for the first time in three weeks. It's going to get colder tomorrow, but I'd like to get over to Viron, with a backup in Tokyu Plaza (Ginza), which will be another 11 km, so I'll only have 6 km left for Friday night, so I'll probably go to Tokyo Midtown, not find anything new, and come back and eat homemade canele or macarons, which I'll be doing Saturday anyway, since I plan to get this year's flu shot.

Frédéric Cassel: P'tite Merveille Caramel,

Took a long run along the Tokyo History and Culture courses, starting with the Gaien Walk of the Shinjuku course and continuing on along the Outer Moat Walk to Akasaka, from which I followed the Akasaka Sanno Walk to where it meets the Marunouchi Past and Present Walk, which I jumped off to transfer to the Sukiyabashi Walk to Ginza. Total, that's about 9 km at nearly 9 km/h.

At Frédéric Cassel at Ginza Mitsukoshi, I got the P'tite Merveille Caramel (according to a French Facebook post) for 648 yen. The bottom is merigue, on top of which is caramel mascarpone cheese cream, then mango and passion fruit. topped by "biscuit-like" caramel type chocolate. It's very good, and not like most cakes, so I'm going to say it's great. Maybe I'll get tired of it if they do another version next month (didn't get to last month's yuzu version), for for now that will be my choice.





The end of the run was just 3.4 to grocer, and was a slower 8 km/h, as I was tired at the beginning.

Not sure when I'll get my next run in, as I'm busy this weekend. Probably something Sunday night, but I hope to get cake before then.

Yu Sasage: Gaien Walk

Got a second cake from Yu Sasage during their visit to Isetan before running.

For the run, I did the east half of the Shinjuku History and Culture course, Gaien Walk and Outer Moat, before following the Shibuya course to the Inner Moat and coming back through Akasaka-Mitsuke and up past Yotsuya Station. Mostly, I was really slow about it, although the point was more to get some hills in. There was 0.2 km of very fast at the beginning, and I managed a moderate speed 6.4 km for the Shinjuku H&C (despite the hills and stairs) and a little extra to cross the main road (and because I overshot the turn onto the Shibuya course), but there was 2.7 km of slow and 2.4 very slow after that, for a total about about 11.7 km.

The cake was the Perfum, which they list as a specialty. This is a tea tart with raspberry cream and jelly with rose-scented meringue and was 486 yen. I can't say that I could pick up on most of this. Certainly, there was a tart that was good, but I couldn't tell you the flavor, and the cream/meringue was raspberry. I wanted to like it, so I did and will call it great, which means that I need make a priority of getting over to Yu Sasage itself, since they are done at Isetan. Also I was reminded that shops have Isetan-only cakes, so I should check out the visiting patisserie even when it's some place that isn't otherwise a priority, just to see if there is anything special.

Saturday: Chez Cima

Today was forecast rain from late morning, building into a storm in the evening, with intense winds. Since I had a late-morning appointment, I gave up doing a big run for day; also the weather was reported to be unstable and I've going to need to check the map a lot for a run along a new history and culture course. Instead, I did an early-morning run along just the east half of the Shinjuku H&C course: Gaien Walk and Outer Moat Walk. These I did in 22'34'' and 9'20'', both relatively very fast. Total, I did 6.1 km very fast and another 3.1 km at moderate speed. So not a big run, but harder than recently (and also, like yesterday, using my racing shoes, although this time I used the running backpack).

On the moderate stretch coming back, I got an Croissant Amonde (345) from Paul, which was excellent, so I'll post a not particularly exciting picture.

Rain started on time, but light, so I walked to the home store of Chez Cima. I did not get something that I couldn't get at Isetan, but if I get back to Isetan and compare, I'll maybe get a sense of what additional things are available at the Home store. The cake is Jardin (?) and was 594 yen. It's just a chocolate cake, which a crunchy base, but it is excellent, so it makes up for Friday's cake even if it was not great.