Cake-off: Rue de Passy's Opera Pistache over Jean-Paul Hévin's Salomé

Still not happy with my left foot (though it's not worse or as bad as last Monday), but I'll be resting from running for a few days. Wednesday night, I managed to get the Yoyogi Park Stn. area before 7 pm, but Donkey closed early (didn't read the handwritten sign on the door closely to find out why), Path said no take-out (I should have asked whether that was true just that evening, every evening, or all the time, but I was in a hurry to move on), and 15 degC looked like the closest they sell to pastries are muffins (I also checked in at fraoula, just to see what they might have, but they weren't open either). I wasn't really expecting to be in time to get anything there anyway, so I went with the original plan and got something at Toukyuu Dept. Store from Deux Magots Paris, Ringo Kouign Amann, which was definitely good and my idea of a pastry, but I don't need fruit in my Kouign Amann.

Thursday morning, I did a run down to P. Rue de Passy to get Pistache Opera (or at least that's how I've blogged it previously, but I thought in the shop that it was Opera Pistache, which does use the Japanese phonetics for the latter on their blog) as a match for another seasonal Jean-Paul Hévin cake, Salomé. This is a second-round cake-off, both having won their first rounds. These both have chocolate but otherwise are opposite, which may or may not be good for cake-offs (I used to try harder to match up likes, but not so much recently). The opera is very heavy and nutty, obviously, and the Salomé is very light, with the vanilla mousse dominating and being chiboust-like. Maybe as usual, I regret not eating this a little slower, savoring each bite more, as it's a little subtle. Today, though, I went with the heavy opera as the winner, which reminded me of cakes I associate with Germany and parts east rather than France, so I guess I'll be making another trip to Passy de Rue for a new cake soon.

Cake-off: JPH "Salomé" vs. PH "Tarte Infiniment Vanille"

Wanted to do a cake-off and as potential matches for Jean-Paul Hévin's Salomé, I went down to Jiyugaoka to see whether Origines Cacao or Dalloyau had something. It was raining and I was trying a new route, though through somewhat familiar areas, and I kept getting turning around (literally, reversing directions after looking at the map, although the first time was apparently wrong) so it took longer than it should have. I came up dry, figuratively, and heading back, tried to take the intended route. I managed some of it, but again became turned around and made almost a big loop back to most of the way where the new part started, so I ended up with about 30 km total, when it should have been maybe 24 or 25 km. Speed (if I calculated correctly, based on points where I know I was) averaged 9 km/h. I should have mentioned yesterday that I ran about 27 km, split between 9 km/h and 10 km/h, and that give me almost 131 km for the week, raw, or 104 km weighted in terms of 12 km/h. My 2-week budget limit will be what's limiting me going into Friday.

Went with the backup plan of getting both cake from Isetan, JPH's Salomé (seasonal) and Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Vanille (a standard). The Salomé is vanilla mousse with a balancing amount of chocolate mousse (that is, much less). This cake is subtle, to the point that I wondered how well I flagged it as great as I started with it. The Tarte is the opposite, very heavy, very strong vanilla (in white chocolate), and is my baseline for judging anything vanilla. In the end though, the more subtle Salomé won with me, even though both cakes are great (and so welcome relieve from a string of just good cakes since last Sunday).