Cake-off: Bien-être's Chocolat Cuit over Paris S'éveille's Saint Honoré Caramel

I started out the weekend with a two-cake deficit from the previous week, which was immediately filled by successfully scoring two cakes for a 5th-round cake-off for cakes from the three-wins one-loss group. Paris S'éveille opened first, so I went there by bicycle (which is why the top of the cake on the left has sagged backward. Actually, they have three cakes that could have fit the bill, but I got the highest priority one. I wasn't too worried about being able to get Chocolat Cuit from Bien-être even though I couldn't get it earlier in the year since I can confirmed more recently and it seemed unlikely that they would cut it coming up on the Valentine's Day, which is peak chocolate season. Being both great to begin with and having similar records, it's not surprising that I can't say definitely that one is better than another. About halfway through, I decided that the Saint Honoré Caramel had more going for it, but too much bitter caramel and not enough tea meant that at the last bite I preferred the Chocolat Cuit, which I'm giving the win. Also, I need to get a bigger tea pot. (I have a French press that would make three cups, but I don't like to use it.)

Full disclosure, I finally tried a Mont-Blanc from Pronto, the chain café and bar, during the week. It was cake-shop priced but grocery store shape and quality, which is good enough for a chain coffee shop, I imagine, but not for me. I won't waste time reviewing it in detail and, should I ever get running again more than a dozen intervals of 1 minute, it won't be on a cake running map.

Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Breteuil over Paris S'éveille's Saint Honoré Caramel

Still working through seasonal cakes I want to get to for fourth-round cake offs, I first ran in light rain to Ginza Mitsukoshi, arriving two minutes before opening. They weren't that surprised to seem me as their first customer at Frédéric Cassel, which I got the Breteuil.

After getting it safely home, I ran down to Shibuya in what was now snow, because I'm really greedy and wanted to also compare pastries. I got the regular Croissant from Sadaharu Aoki, since the next stop was Paris S'éveille, which also has great pastries. It was the next step, but I didn't go the shortest way.

At PS (still snowing lightly all the way), having successfully timed it to arrive between the interval that Saint Honoré Caramels are brought out and when the sell out, I was able to get this three-time cake-off winner. For the pastry, I got Croissant Orange.

For a first of the new viennoiserie-off, I'm giving the win to Croissant Orange. It's no secret what appeals to me about both: sugar. The SA uses a syrup coating and PS uses powered sugar. But I'm giving the win to Croissant Orange, for what it's worth. Not sure that this is as useful as comparing great cakes, since the bar is really lower.

The main event, however is the cake-off. At least on this day and in this combination, the caramel of the Saint Honoré Caramel was more bitter than I wanted. Also, the nutty creamy decadence of the Breteuil could not be resisted. It's a little sad to think that I'll wait another year before I have this gain, but I did squeeze in two cake-offs with it this season, so even a four-time cake-off winner can't really ask for more.

I tagged this with neighborhood run, but then failed to include the night run. What I tried to do, as a new project this year, is do neighborhood course "clumps" (at least two loops and including all attached links with sites), but I failed both. I added a new site and split what's become the Yotsuya 3-choume Stn. southwest clump into a Samon-chou-Yotsuya loop, which I could do, and a Daikyou-chou--Shinanomachi loop, which I failed on when it came to matching on the east and west ends of the north stretch. I tried the remaining Shinjuku Gyouen clump, but failed on a link, which was not consistent with another link, so I revised them to all use the shortest path (versus favoring hugging close to Shinjuku Gyouen).

Cake-off: Paris S'éveille's Saint Honoré Caramel over Éclat des Jours' Rhum Raisin

Today's is not a very happy post. First, in celebration of the first day of spring (a national holiday, sensible) I went to Éclat des Jours by bicycle and got their Rhum Raisin for a cake-off and brought it back the same way. That was fine, though I found that the cleaners is closed on holidays. They also close early on workdays, and I've been working late, which is kind of a problem. I'm hoping Friday I'm not to late, because I really need to pick something up, even if I don't have time to stop at home to get something to take.

In the afternoon, I ran to Paris S'éveille to get their Saint Honoré Caramel. For some reason, Google suggested what seemed to be a longer than usual route (maybe if finally figured out that you can't cross Ring Road 7 on foot from the road parallel to the train tracks. I also incorporated a couple sites to take pictures of, one new (old) bread shop in Jinguumae and a couple in meguro (and one that turned out to not exist), if I ever get back to expanding the neighborhood course. I seemed to be running fine until the last kilometer, and then my right foot had had enough. I could manage to continue, but it wasn't pleasant and I iced at home. I had skipped running 4 days. Looks like I'm going to skip more next. Well, I'm a little busy the next couple weekends anyway. Got got my cake and saw that they had a couple of other regular ones I want to cake-offs that I hadn't seen previously, so know I know I just have to go at the right time.

I wasn't that into cake today, and I'm reluctant to blame the cake, but certainly Rhum Raisin has also been a precarious as a great cake. Sure it's the best rum raisin cake I know, but do I need it? It's on probation, but it had three great evaluation, so it's not in any immediate danger of getting kicked off. However the win goes to Saint Honoré Caramel, though I'm feeling that I've had this too much lately. Also, I didn't match this up will with tea, so I should watch that (it's pretty sweet, so it needs a strong tea to balance it). Still, I really appreciated it's quality as a saint honoré compared to a recent disappointment.

Cake-off: Paris S'éveille's Saint Honoré Caramel over Origines Cacao's Tarte Caramel Chocolat

Started off trying to get a cake from JPH at Isetan for a cake-off, but they've changed the line-up mid-February, despite what I was told in January. Unfortunately, the change doesn't bring back one that I was looking for, but I'm not sure how stable the line-up is now, so I should probably check to see whether they slip anything else in in coming weeks before the text announced change (Tonka remains).

I stuck with my plan for the other cake in the cake-off, the Paris S'éveille's Saint Honoré Caramel. On the way, I dropped by the Tokyo Mid-Town JPH, just in case they had it (that was where they told me, after a long search through records, that it would be around until Feb. 28), they had switched the line-up there too. I also stopped at the chocolate shop Chapon and saw that that it had some café customers, so I guess they're okay. For the Paris S. cake, it's hard to get because they make it in the afternoon (when I asked once, they said could get it it 1 pm, but it seemed like even that was hurrying things), apparently. This time I was there just after 14:00, and there were a couple left, so they don't seem excited about making a lot of them. For convenience, I went to the opposite end of the shopping area there in Jiyuugaoka and got the Tarte Caramel Chocolat from Origines Cacao.

I was not thinking ahead of time that I wanted to compare two caramel cakes, but that's the way it turned out. It took a little bit to recognize the greatness, but I definitely got there with Saint Honoré Caramel by half way through. Usually I can judge each cake on its merits, but I think the fact that I had the saint honoré Caramel meant that it was harder to appreciate the Tarte Caramel Chocolat. It's definitely excellent, but I didn't feel that the chocolate was especially complementary to the caramel, whereas the small amount of nuts with the saint honoré were. I just don't need the former if I have the latter. However, the tart won its previous round, so it will get another chance in the third round. So the Saint Honoré Caramel gets its second cake-off win in a row and I'll probably get to its third round within the next month or so. As far as a follow-up to Paris S., I was one cake ahead (some weekend when I didn't have another distance shop in mind) already, and the three untested cakes  I saw today were all coffee-flavored, so I think I'll wait a while.

Cake-off: Paris S'éveille's Saint Honoré Caramel over Frédéric Cassel's Konatsu Cheesecake

Lots of cycling today, when I learned not to go to shops so early. Paris S'éveille's Saint Honoré Caramel wasn't available until 11:45, or so they told me at 10:15. I didn't stick around, but ordered ahead (and paid). I'm recognizable enough that I didn't even have to give my name when I came back around 12:30. In between, I went to Ginza to pick up Frédéric Cassel's Konatsu Cheesecake for a first-round cake-off, take it home, and then get back to Jiyuugaoka for my other cake. Then I still had to get home again, but felt less hurried. There was some caramel cream stuck to the paper divider, but the cake was pretty well packed and it traveled well even by bicycle.

The actual result of the cake-off was another technical decision. The cheesecake is pretty mild, so maybe bitter caramel isn't the best pairing, but I don't have a lot of mild cakes in my great cakes list. What I also don't have is another Saint Honoré. I'm not even sure that I have another bitter caramel, as I think the Aigre-Douce one is pretty sweet and other ones have been unavailable. Anyway, this my evaluation is really about what my priority is for having a great cake again, I'm going with this Saint Honoré, though I need to remember to eat it at a lower temperature. Let it warm up for 5 min seemed good for the cheesecake, but I think the shape of the cream makes that less needed and the custard inside the balls is better colder.

By my rule, I should be following up with another cake from Paris S'éveille, but since they don't have another (non-coffee-flavored) untried cake, and Frédéric Cassel is my top shop among those with untried cake, I'll probably get back to there first, as well as Viron, for last weekend's cake-off. As a third shop for the next weekday cakes, I'd like to try Heritage for a fifth cake, working my way through under-sampled excellent shops, though I have a couple other choices there. Before that, Ryoura is the shop I'm most serious about promoting and I should spread around my selections to stay interested, so I think that will be tomorrow's destination (at the actual shop, though Tokyo Midtown had some at the one I just had from there also today, though I thought tomorrow was their other day; I'll check again tomorrow to finish my week's daily survey of them.

Paris S'éveille: Saint Honoré Caramel

Well, I successfully did 31 km of my neighborhood course at the 7 min/km pace. Even knowing that I did not need to go as fast as last time at the beginning did not seem to affect the first couple kilometers, which were under 6'10'' each, just because there is no slope and no stairs along there. I did let myself go over 7 min more often later without worrying about it, but near the end I cross 7'30'' and it was relatively flat I thought (though by that point, my judgement maybe was not that good and actually I can't think where that would be true), so I made the effort to speed up and didn't have so much trouble, though I was plenty tired. Mostly I could remember the kilometer markers and I didn't really start spacing one ones until fairly late. I'll need to get started on the next batch. Probably I'll try for around 48 km.

The run ended near the café Path, around Yoyogi Koen Stn., where there were people waiting. I assume that you can just get take-out, but it wasn't obvious, so I went down Musée du Chocolat Théobroma on by way to Jiyuugaoka, walking. At Théobroma I got a Pain au Chocolate. It was definitely good, squarely qualifying as a pastry rather than just fancy bread, but maybe I've had enough of this level of Pain au Chocolate by this point that I'm more hesitant to designate new ones a excellent. They also have cake there, which is the only place I know to get cake from them.

I made it to Paris S'éveille, despite sore feet. I'm not sure whether there is any solution to that, but they seem okay now. There, I got the Saint Honoré Caramel, which I had just noticed as something that I have not had from them before (I had a different flavored saint-honoré from them previously). This is a little delicate for such a long trip, so I took a picture of the other side. I liked this enough to call it great. Coming from a favorite store and being of a type that I haven't designated great are probably big factors, but I'd like to have this again and would recommend it to others.

(Mon) Toshi Yoroizuka: Choux à la Crème and Saint Honoré Caramel

Went to the Tokyo Toshi Yoroizuka on Monday afternoon after a failed trip to Jean-Paul Hévin (the typhoon blocked the shipment of special pastry, so I reserved one for the special delivery on Wednesday) and shared three cakes: Baba, Choux à la Crème, and Saint Honore Caramel. The Baba is a repeat but worth mentioning, as I dismissed the whole cake type previously as uninteresting but am now willing to appreciate it and say that, even among baba, this one was excellent. The unusually feature (besides the strong warning about the amount of alcohol) was the fig. Another type of cake (?) that I've disparaged is Choux à la Crème, and in fact I got a really fancy one from Toshi Yorizuka just last week and was not impressed at all. This, however, was excellent. In fact, it's just what I said custard needed, something to contrast with it. I was thinking of a custard tart with a dense shell, but this cream puff was fairly thick, though not sense but rather had some air in it but it was baked enough to caramelize it much more than an one I've had before, and it really worked to make contrasting tastes that went together. (It's like, they are professionals, or something.)

The third cake was my choice and was a Saint Honoré Caramel and was definitely excellent. Not sure what else I can say about it. Also choux and cream/custard, but with a strong caramel taste that I liked (even though I'm not always a fan of a stronger, smokey caramel taste). 

The running was another failed attempt to run just my neighborhood course, which I can't stop fiddling with (which is what I do instead of playing computer games, which I also rarely finish). I confirmed some new parts but then got lost and found a couple things I didn't like so I've revamped it completely again (though the sights are the same, so the paths are not so different). My plan for Thursday is to make the next attempt of the approximately 20 km for the Yotsuya 3 chome SE & SW and surrounding Shinjuku Gyoen west, south, and east. In the unlikely event that I complete it without finding any parts that need to be further fixed, I've already confirmed that I can expand southwest without working out the details. The map thus far is here. 

Frédéric Cassel: Saint Honoré Caramel

Been out of commission for several days, but finally I felt better than last time I ran, so I took a chance. It was just over 8 km at 9 km/h (although I was having trouble keeping the speed that low on the outbound). At Frédéric Cassel, I got the Saint Honoré Caramel (756 yen). I liked last month's saint-honoré and I thought one other caramel cake this month was great, but I didn't care for this taste at all and the texture impressed me less than with the last saint-honoré. Still, it's a common enough caramel taste, despite I not being fond of it and I didn't really mind eating it, so it was still good.


Not sure whether I should try the third caramel or wait from the next batch, but I'll probably get to it. Now I'll see if I can manage to run the next three days to at least get a little caught up, not that it matters, since I'll take the weekend off again, so next week the running budget is going to constrain me.