Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Autunno

It was a hard week, so I'm behind again. Tuesday, I was late out the door, but it didn't really matter because the two local shops I want to visit were both closed already earlier than the online information I had. I had consider going back to Odakyu but decided to keep that as a backup from Wednesday and went down to Fiorentina Pastry Boutique in Roppongi Hills to recover from the previous day. I got their Autunno, which is similar in style to their Estate, which is my favorite from their. I'm not completely sure I remember what was in it, but I certainly something brulée, as their was caramelized chocolate. Also, their was alcohol, I think related to (Western) pear. It was definitely a relative sophisticated cake for adults and that was what I was in mood for, and found it excellent. Note sure that I got the spelling right, but that was closest to what I could recall of the phonetic Japanese at the time.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Strawberry Tiramisu

Monday, I didn't work late and ran to Ginza Mitsukoshi, where I didn't find what I was looking for (though I forgot then to look at Ladurée, so I'll need to visit their Aoyama shop on the weekend, since everywhere else is completely closed), and headed over the Foiorentina Pastry Boutique, working on the cakes from quite exceptional shops. They're in a hotel, so I have to pass a body temperature test, but they let me into the lobby. At the cake counter, there was not a huge selection, but they were open. I got the Strawberry Tiramisu, which is a standard I've often seen. I'll say that it was good, but not more than expected. Sort of like soft cheese (compared to cakes in general) with strawberry flavoring.

Tuesday, I went to Isetan the last day before department stores shut down, so almost everything was sold out. I got the Florentin Nature from Sadaharu Aoki, and this was great, for what's basically a cookie. I haven't said that about any other cookie, so I'll need to keep sampling there from the category, but I'll need to do it at he Marunouchi shop on a weekend or holiday if I want to do it over the next month.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique: Paris-Brest

Working through catching up the established exceptional shops that aren't under threat from below before going back to Hilltop, I did the short run to Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, with the plan to do some non-weights indoor working out afterward, which I did. As a 7th new cake, I choose the cake Paris-Brest, which in the tradition of many Japanese cakes, is in almost now way what it calls itself: it's not tire-shaped and no hazelnut praliné. Instead, it's custard cream, whipped cream and strawberry sandwiched between choux pastry, which is also pretty common. Actually, they got the balance of ingredients just right for me, whereas usually I don't like mixing custard and whipped cream, much less popping strawberries in. It's still not my thing, but it was definitely good and I enjoyed it.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Strawberry Shortcake

Ran down to Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, at Roppongi Hills, who I was two cakes behind on, having promoted them from quite fine to exceptional recently. The corresponding hotel patisserie at Tokyo Midtown, who I need a third cake from won't reopen until Friday. I had shortcake on my mind, since they had three types last time and the peach was excellent, so I got the Strawberry Shortcake, though there were a couple other options. I tried to do a nearby loop with the cake, but between the dark and the rain, I missed the third term, which shouldn't have been a challenge, so I quit and came back. It was raining pretty good, so I used an umbrella and walked with my cake, stopping for groceries near home. The Strawberry Shortcake was good. As shortcakes go, the strawberries were fine. I would characterizing this one by noting that there seemed to be a lot more strawberries than cream between layers, though not a huge amount of either.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Peach Shortcake

Decided that I didn't want to run to Ginza again (like Tuesday) and instead ran to Roppongi Hills again (like the previous few days). It's not such a far run but I did do four 1-min dashes on the way and ran most of the way back. I went to visit Fiorentina Pastry Boutique at Roppongi Hills, which is the pastry shop for Grand Hyatt Tokyo. My justification was that FC was 2 cakes down out of 48, whereas one exceptional shop was 2 cakes down out of 6, so they should be the priority, but the latter was below Fiorentina, so first I had to resolve where Fiorentina belonged. Unfortunately, though Fiorentina are open fairly late, they don't have a big selection late, so my choices for a fifth cake were between three kinds of shortcakes and a couple verrines, so I went with a shortcake. I chose a slight upgrade from the basic model and got the Peach Shortcake. There's also a high-end shortcake for more than double again the price, but I would want to share that. By virtue of a slight detour on the way back, I completed the new Nishi-Azabu northeast loop clockwise, so I should be able when I finished it off with the larger loops on the other side of the main street that I've been working on, hopefully Friday.

The shortcake was typical in structure, but peach was an excellent choice and I have to admit that it was excellent, which I was not expecting, given my preference for heavy cakes. This balance of cake, cream, and fruit was much more to my liking than last night's, but still it was the fruit as central. This puts this shop squarely above at least one exceptional shop with the same number of cakes, so it gets moved up and Bubó Barcelona gets moved down to the quite fine group, perhaps never to be visited again for cake, though it's solidly a fine shop. Still at least two more challengers from the quite fine group to go before these two groups are properly separated, though now that Lenôtre is settled, I can visit a completely new shop. Before that, I think I'll work on the two-cake quite fine shops tomorrow.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Mille-feuille

Got my cake by bicycle first. Even though Fiorentina Pastry Boutique lost the last cake-off, it won the one before, so this catches me up on them (fourth cake). I decided to go with the safe choice of Mille-feuille. For running, I tried the modified Akasaka--Azabudai--Roppongi--Toranomon loop failed when it came time to make the last turn before the new site I just confirmed last night, KB-Keiji, which I'll get to below. I was thinking I needed to turn at the next light, but was just looking for crosswalks, so I missed the first intersection with a stoplight and overshot by enough that I knew I gone too far. I went back and confirmed the correct place, which might help if I try again tomorrow, and then headed for home. On the way back, I found another Natural Lawson within the same loop, but I can't see a more efficient way to add it to the over course than as another around-the-block cul-de-sac loop, unfortunately. No change to the main loop. I say "another" because last night I confirmed a different such loop, also because of a Natural Lawson, but at least that loop has another site on it, so splitting that one off shortened the main loop slightly at least, but that would have been near the end of the run, whereas I only got about 40% of the loop. The cake was fine. They did not do anything fancy, but it seemed perfect for what it was and I like mille-feuille, so I can say it was excellent. The run felt good, but I don't imagine my feet will be happy about it tomorrow. It was doing 1:6 walking:running and ended up doing over 73 minutes of running. 

Monday, I went out by bicycle to confirm some sites and do some shopping become coming home and doing some indoor working out. The new shop was KB-Keiji, which is a German cake/bread shop (so a konditorei&backerei, thus the KB). I got what I'll have to write as Nusswolen, though I can't find any comparable name or desert from anywhere except this shop. It's hazelnuts, shortened to just nuts (nuss), but I don't no what woren/wolen is. It was ok, but pretty dry. The shop and shopkeeper seem quite old but there is a pretty varied selection. Looks hard to keep going, though I went pretty late, so maybe they move a lot of bread during the day, which there wasn't much of when I went.

Le Chocolate Alain Ducasse, Mousse au Chocolat & Millefeuille Chocolat/Noisette

Saturday, I finally visited a pricey chocolate salon on my neighborhood running route (Roppongi 6 north loop), Le Chocolate Alain Ducasse. The other location is Nihonbashi. I can't say I know a better shop for chocolate desserts, though the best JPH café desserts are at the Kyoto shop, as are some special cakes I'm envious of.

Besides a nice tea and definitely good hot chocolate, the order was Mousse au Chocolat, which is a lot of mousse (I was happy to eat just half), with decorated by a different kind of chocolate, but I'm so sophisticated that I can remember what two countries they were from, but I believe that it does matter. Definitely good.

The other was Millefeuille Chocolat/Noisette, which has quite rich chocolate cream and a millefeuille that matched well. I think I could detect the hazelnut (beside the millefeuille obviously having been made out of something) but it is not a huge influence. Also definitely good.

Good is maybe not high praise but I'm serious that this might be the best place for high-end chocolate café desserts, even if I'm more interested in straight cake, which these could qualify for in a pinch but doesn't seem like a fair classification.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Estate

After visiting a top 3 shop (quite superb) Tuesday, and a top 15 shop (quite exceptional) on Wednesday, I went for a shop in the quite fine group that I want to slim down to being part of the top 63 shops. This time it was the Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, which is the pastry shop attached to the Tokyo Grand Hyatt Hotel in Roppongi Hills. It's been more than two years since I was last there. On the way, I ran the 550 m bordering the Akasaka Palace grounds and walked the rest, but was a start at running again.

As cake, I got Estate, I think. My main concern was not to get the same cake as previously more than worrying about the details, so I didn't finish reading the card before ordering. From the card and the taste, this definitely has peach and liquor. It also obviously has a lot of white chocolate. I'm not sure about the cake layers, as there was a brown layer and a green layer. I ate with green tea and either the green in the cake was green tea or it was pistachio that harmonized with the fruit. In any case, it was very nice and different from other cakes I've enjoyed, so I'm going to say that it was great. I don't have any candidates to quickly get it in a cake-off and it seems seasonal, so the immediate consequence it to put it at the top of the quite fine category, making a candidate for promotion. I'll try to get back there in the next couple weeks.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique: Marquise

Decided that consecutive training days is no fun, so I'm not going to do that. Fortunately, I wanted to get back to Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, which is close, so I did a leisurely run, just 10 km/h for only about 7 km round trip. The cake was Marquise　（マラキューズ; 594 yen), which is chocolate sponge with chocolate ganache. It was definitely good, but not groundbreaking, which is sort of the best you can expect from a Hotel patisserie, which is reasonable. They pretty need to be noncontroversial and cover the basics. However, they should know not to try to stabilize a cake for transport by taping a support to the loose napkin under it. Still, it survived reasonably well, considering.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique: Bianco Monte Japanese

Another shortish run revisiting some place I've been but never blogged. In this case, I went down to Fiorentina Pastry Boutique in the Hyatt in Roppongi Hills, which is about 3.5 km. Partially, I was trying not to go to fast and partially I was just still tired from yesterday, so my speeds were 10 km/h going down and 9 km/h coming back. Same as yesterday, I waited until later to have my cake with tea.

The cake was the Bianco Monte Japanese (626), which is another mont-blanc with domestic chestnuts. The chestnut paste was very smooth and the meringue base was very nutty. The base was coarser and yet airier than Jean-Paul Hévin's, which is my reference. Definitely excellent, so I should visit again soon. Note, that the cake didn't travel perfectly, so it's probably less symmetric than originally.

1 min intervals to Louange Tokyo: Cube-Caramel

Ran down to try a new shop. Did about 11 intervals of 1 min + 1 min fast to get there. Took the regular route down to Aoyama Road and then through Aoyama Cemetery to the Shibuya History and Culture route. The last part maybe isn't that great late at night, as far as traffic and sidewalk, but still okay.

At Louange Tokyo, I had a choice of 6 cakes and didn't choose well: I chose the Cube-Caramel for 846 yen (they're all the same shape and cost). I should only order caramel from shops that I've already judged based on other cakes, because the chance that I'll like it is low. This one had caramel mousse, caramel brulée, praline ganache, biscuit Joconde (which I think is almond added to meringue to make cake, versus using baking soda/power to get some sponge), and various nuts. Some parts were good (the nuts), but overall it's not a flavor that I like. It was a well-made cake, seemed like, and not small, but it would have to be pretty good for me to be satisfied at the price. Still, even only designating it as not bad but not worth special attention, it's close and open late, so I'll probably get over there for a second cake eventually (hopefully before the go out of business, not that I have reason to know whether that is likely).

No running or cake tomorrow, so it will be homemade. I want to make shortbread, which I've never done, just because it sounds good, so I should finally get myself an actual cookie sheet or big flat cake pan, although I can use the pans that fit the open if I stay away from their edges, since they are more fit for roasting something (I think I used them for pizza before I got my pizza stone, but otherwise I'm not sure what I use them).

Saturday, I hope to get over to La Primeur, but since it is Saturday and I missed my chance last week, I'd like to also visit Hidemi for takeout cake, which will make it a long run. For Sunday, I'm thinking about going up to Aigre-Douce.