Cake off: Saya versus Croquant Fraise

Found two great cakes and went for a comparison, but it took a lot of work.

First, I went to Marunouchi Sadaharu Aoki and verified that they had Saya in stock (I knew it was in season, because it's at Isetan and Tokyo Midtown). Next, I went to Dalloyau and found that Croquant Fraise was also in season and bought it. That took 6 km at almost exactly 12 km/h.

Then I went back to the Sadaharu Aoki, but even though they had had three pieces just a short time before, suddenly they were sold out. It was already too late to go to Isetan but Tokyo Midtown is open until 21:00, so I went there. From Dalloyau to Tokyo Midtown via Marunouchi Sadaharu Aoki was 4.7 km at a low 11 km/h. I was successful: they had four pieces of Saya.

Finally, a few kilometers home with two cakes at a low 10 km/h. So 14 km total not particularly slow, and two pieces of cake, which means only one more weekday run (I plan for a 12 km/h training run tomorrow) and no more cake (but I'll try again to get a baguette). I'm busy this weekend, but maybe I can manage to get up early Saturday morning and get another training run in before my first appointment.

In the face-off of these two cakes, I preferred the Croquant Fraise, which has custard, chocolate, strawberry (the common ingredient), caramelized almond slices, and a macaron shell. The Saya is also excellent, but I wouldn't have rated it as great if this were my first time. I am not surprised. I don't expect to like every cake the same amount every time and the line between excellent and great is not so clear. My impression of Saya was that it was too sweet for me. I had it with tea, so maybe next time I get an Sadaharu Aoki cake, I should either have milk or wine (I can imagine eating at least the fruity ones with sparkling wine).

patisserie Sadaharu Aoki paris: Saya

Browsed cookbooks for French sweets, and found a couple worth getting, so now I'm going to have to decide how serious I am about it.

Then went to Aoki at Isetan and got the Saya for 830 yen (not a cheap shop). Strawberry cream dominates, although there is pistachio cream (and pistachio bits on top) and the taste of hazelnut, if I've correctly unraveled the Japanese saburenowazetto (サブレノワゼット) back to French. (An ideal cookbook would have English, French, Japanese phonetic French, and native Japanese terms all listed.) I can only taste the strawberry, but it is not too strong (although the cake is on the sweet side, suggesting that I'm really going to have to learn to get into tea), so I'm sure everything else is balancing it out to make it perfect. Even the bottom biscuit is good, of the crumbly type.

Great cake from a great shop and they gave me half a lemon macron while I was waiting, which was delicious (and would cost another 150 yen, I assume), so I'm happy, although my plan is to go somewhere cheaper next time. This is the strawberry cake to beat at this point, although there is room for different types of great strawberry cake.

I regret not centering the picture, but the strawberry pulled me left. Now if I knew which of the several settings I tried this was, I would have learned something.