Le Jardin Bleu, Tarte Chocolat Macadamia

Last Wednesday, for a third day in a row, I could get to a (now opening later) department store to get a cake from the current quite fine shop group. In this case, I wanted to get one of Le Jardin Bleu's cakes via Shinjuku Takashimaya, since the main shop is a long way away. Maybe because it is so far away (or because it was the end of the day, leaving only the least popular), I had only one choice, a fairly solid item that I imagine could be made far ahead. This is Tarte Chocolat Macadamia. The chocolate coating is fairly thick. The inside also has caramel, besides the macadamia nuts. So this is more like a candy bar than any typical cake, which is not a complaint. It was good, but that's probably not going to be enough to keep it in the quite fine group. 

Tadashi Yanagi, Mont-Blanc

Working through the quite fine shop list to get them all up to at least 4 cakes, I picked up a Tadashi Yanagi cake, Mont-Blanc, from the counter at Shinjuku Takashimiya, as they are featured there on Mondays. It was good and had a meringue base, I think, both huge improvements over my previous Mont-Blanc. Unfortunately, that probably isn't enough to keep in it the quite fine category, but we'll see.

I note that I'm also going to want to go back there to get cake from Le Jardin Bleu for the same reason. Yanagi actually isn't that far away, even for Setagaya (they used to have a shop on Aoyama-doori Ave., but that's been closed for a while), whereas Le Jardin Bleu is deep in the western suburbs. Not that far but not as close as Yanagi, I note that Noliette doesn't have their counter there any more, so I should have visited them earlier at Takashimaya.

Ron Herman Café: Cheesecake and Mont-Blanc

I was busy on the weekend, but did a first visit to the Ron Herman Café in Sendagaya and had lunch and cake for two. The cakes were their Cheesecake, which has fresh grapes, and a Mont-Blanc. For a café, this place has a pretty good selection, which was one reason for choosing it, plus it's not in a crowded area, though fairly busy (not sure where people come from, since it's far from the standard shopping areas, and yet they continue, though obviously on people's radars). Too much gelatin on the top of the cheesecake for me, but definitely good cake, with amount of sour cream sourness that I miss in a lot of cheesecakes here. 

I thought the Mont-Blanc was also definitely, but it was pointed out that it had a sort of amateurish disorder. The base is about 1 centimeter thick of something between a dense pound cake and a sablé-type cookie, which is a bit unusually, but probably useful for a café. I suspect both the base and the cheesecake are prepared in advance at a remote location and the top parts are added locally.

Anyway, good enough that it should count as a cake shop on my local running map, but not good enough that I'll probably get back to it now that I've had two cakes.
 

Okashiya Utchii, Choux Cream

The Monday morning began with a snack from a new boulangerie in a new hotel next to a new park. Actually, it's a tiny space in a corner (with it's own door), that share a staff person with the hotel cafe, but I imagine they do good business across form the new National Stadium. I've seen groups of runners and groups of cyclist meeting up in front of there. I went with the reliable Pain au Chocolat again. This one features an uneven outer surface, which allows for powdered sugar, and a hotel breakfast style of softness to the interior, but it wasn't under-baked and it worked, so I'll say it was excellent. Not a big variety, they all beautiful looking. This place goes by the name The Grove Bakery.

Got to Au Bon View Temps between 10:30 and 11:00, as planned, well enough after they opened for everything to be be out and got my cake. Unfortunately, it didn't travel well, so I'm not sure whether I'll tweet it and I didn't eat it first, so I'll move on. The reason I didn't go earlier is because coming back I got off the tain at Kitasandou Station and went to Okashiotchii for the first time, a kind of patisserie in Sendagaya that is relatively new and I haven't visited, so it's a priority in terms of the neighborhood running course. They didn't actually have many items for sale, which I expected (not sure what they do; maybe ordered items). The closest thing to an individual cake was the Chuu Cream, so I got that. It comes with an explanation (of why it's so expensive) of how it uses top-class organic eggs. Certainly it was different, but I don't have a deep knowledge of custard, so the difference was mostly wasted on me, I think. It was still good, but not enough to take me back (not that there was much else for me to choose).

My next run was on the Minami-Motomachi--Samon-chou--Suga-chou--Shinanomachi--Wakaba--Yotsuya loop, where I failed (I was successful the next day) because of a new path that I was not sure where it started (I choose a dead end one the first time), but I still did the full route, to fill in some pictures of new sites. Early on, I decided to give Doutor Coffee a chance that they had something worth getting, and choose their packaged Baumkuchen, which I imagined was pretty hard to mess up and was right: it managed to be good.

Monmouth Tea: Apple Tart

I've got some catching up to do. Friday, I ended up working late, did some shopping, and then was really exhausted, so exercise at all. I also didn't get fresh cake, which was as planned, but I did get something from Sadaharu Aoki, since it doesn't look like I'll ever have as many new cakes as befits their ranking. I tried the seasonal Fondant au Marron. Definitely had the chestnut flavor and was definitely soft. I would say that this was excellent.

Saturday, my main plan was to try the longest (now revised) loop, Daita-..., but I had an appointment in the morning, so I went out for a couple hours before that and scouted Around Ebisu, taking photos and figured out that my proposed route enclosing Ebisu Garden Place was not going to work, due to where I could cross to the south side of Ebisu Terrace. The Kamioosaki part is going to have to be separate loop. I also ran the Ebisu-Nishi west loop counterclockwise while was down there, so I was up to date on revised loops at that point except for the Daita-... one.

Starting out of the big look, I took the route through Sendagaya so I could stop at Monmouth Tea, which I had an excellent tart from. I want to call it a pastry because it's relatively cheap, you can eat in by hand, and I want to have my tart and cake too, but they list it under cake (but not gateaux) on their website, so now I'm conflicted. Supposedly they can also have other cakes, including whole cakes (which I assume you have to order), but I've only seen the tarts and muffins to date. This time, I got the Apple Tart, and it was definitely good, but they it didn't get ice or seem to need it (though I didn't eat it quickly enough to tell whether the display case was a cooler), so I'm going to keep called this as a pastry or baked good, though there is some custard under the fruit (not a lot and it could be baked, like the apples). I'll keep looking there. Anyway, I recommend it for baked goods so far, as cheap and definitely good to excellent, though I'm not interested in milk tea, much less ice milk tea, so I turned town the free sample at this second visit.

Before I reached the milk tea shop, I went by a Japanese tea shop that had sweets that I decided justified adding it as a site, so I've had to revise the Sendagaya central loop. I continued on to the Sendagaya south loop and found a place called Moon Dog that had baked goods, so that blows that loop. Later, looking a Google maps (which doesn't show Moon Dog) I found at least the workshop of a cake maker (maybe it's the same guy: couldn't remember when I saw the cake maker the next day when I confirmed the location). At the end of this run, I stopped by and had a (not cheap) Milk Chocolate Chip Cookie (might not be the correct name). This is a soft cookie, but not a doughy/oily cookie, which was maybe excellent as a cookie, though I little sweet (I probably should have gone for the Dark Chocolate).

Continuing on, I decided that Rapha Tokyo, which is a cafe/bicycling meet-up location, deserved to be on the Sendagaya west loop, so that revises that one. Finally, I got to the target loop and good a good ways around it, at least enough to correct my last mistake and get the revised part including Jam House and an inari shrine and do the continuous park strip from Honmachi 1 to past Gojou Bridge, but coming back, there was construction (an excuse) that distracted me so that I forget to turn after Equal (pastry shop) to go by the late addition Padders Coffee (which I have gotten correct in the past). Given that I had two hours of exercise in the morning (though mostly by bicycle), I wasn't devastated. At first a turned to home, but that I reconsidered what I should do and decided that I should try another incomplete look nearby, so I did the revised Kamiyama-chou--Tomigaya--Udagawa-chou loop counterclockwise (because I wasn't convinced I could do clockwise, and still it's going to be tricky to remember where the new turn is). Nearby, I also tried a look loop, as well as taking the photographs for it, which I hadn't even named yet, but is the Udakawa-chou loop. I failed this simple loop because I couldn't remember where to turn (which either means, don't until you have to or immediately and I choose wrong). On that loop, I found another site, but also noticed a new shop (though a known chain), flippers on the Jinnan loop side. It's a pancake place, which I don't do, but there but the sign out front was readable across the street declaring a kind of sandwich treat which maybe should qualify, so that blows that loop, too. I also found another site already on the Udagawa-chou loop (I had seen it before, but not looked at what they offered, which includes a pastry and bread display) and on the course link there (as a place selling ribbons that also has drinks and a fresh brownie with whipped cream). Also next to that loop is the reopened Parco department store, so I had to checkout whether there were any shops I need to add.

Café Marly

Café Marly looked interesting, but not for running, so it goes as special information. However, there is a Starbucks on the fifth floor, so I suppose that counts.

Monmouth Tea, Black Cherry Tart

For today's cake, I planned to visit a neighborhood shop for a first cake, as well as run five recently updated neighborhood loops, all successfully, though two I still have to do counterclockwise to complete. One new site was the Monmouth Tea shop, which also has a tart, quiche, and muffins. I wasn't sure how cake-like or pastry-like the tart would be, but took it anyway. I was priced on the low side, so I wasn't surprised that it was a butter tart rather than something richer, but was plenty substantial. I'm calling it a pastry, but it was excellent, so even if I'm look for cake, I might stop there again and see whether the tart flavor has changed.

Noliette, Noisettine

Due to a lingering health problem, I decided to get my cake more locally than I would have and a little out of order by going down to Shinjuku Takashimaya and visiting the Noliette counter (versus Patissieria, which also had 3 of their their cakes, but different ones). This brand is big on traditional forms and I chose Noisettine, which is hazelnut biscuit, hazelnut butter cream, and hazelnut praliné. I like nuts and this kind of tradition cake, so its not shock that I thought this was excellent, which keeps them in the quite fine category for now.

Königs-Krone: Kobe Bear Pochi Éclair Chocolate & Kobe Bear Pochi Éclair Custard

No running, just stopped by Shinjuku Takashimaya for the last unsampled counter there, Königs-Krone. They don't generally have fresh cake (though they have cakes), but they do have their Kobe Bear Pochi (little?) Éclair, of which I got the chocolate and custard (you can get a five-flavor set, but that was more than I needed). These are are a little crude as éclair, but close enough, and they are good. 

Wittamer: Chocolat Noisette

Had some business around Shinjuku Stn. (besides confirming the cake names for Bigarreaux from Sunday night), so I got cake from another "neighborhood" cake shop that I haven't posted from before, Wittamer at Shinjuku Takashimaya. Of course, Wittamer is a pretty standard department store brand, but they have a reasonable line up. I went with the Chocolat Noisette (chocolate and hazelnut), which seemed safe. The cake is good and definitely as avertized as far as flavor. The cross-section is pretty ugly, though, and I'm not that thrilled by the texture, as it was softer cake than I like (I like mousse or a drier biscuit, whereas this was mostly sponge cake, maybe). Still, not a bad choice if you're at Takashimaya.

I ran with the goal of Lawson 100, following neighborhood routes around south Yotsuya. Total, it was 27 minutes, though I wannted 30 minutes. Still, it was fine and I can increase the length tomorrow and run in the opposite direction, at least on the southwest Yotsuya part, and meet up where I finished today. As my running increases, I can get back to more distant neighborhood courses. Also, I still need to update the one today by Akasaka Palace, where they finished the construction around the park (now, there's construction around the north just north of Akasaka Palace, but that doesn't block my route).

Tadashi Yanagi, La Deux Chocolat

Monday, they told me my arm was not broken (no surprise) and otherwise just gave me drugs and told me to come back to reception if I want more. Actually, I have the same leftover drugs from previous visits for other ailments. Doctors, often not very helpful, and/or sprains, not getting the respect that they should, or so I've heard, so I'm going to try to be careful even once the pain subsides.

In the evening, I went back to Tadashi Yanagi for a third cake, La Deux Chcolat (I'm interpreting). This is a brownie under chocolate mousse with orange (I think; they have dozen of cakes on their website, but not this one). I was not optimistic really. It has structural advantages, but a hard brownie (best as a cake base) is not really a good brownie, so I've yet to have this type of cake work out. It was still good, but that's all. With two excellent cakes and one good, Tadashi Yanagi seems to be quite good, and so three cakes is enough for at least a year.

Tadashi Yanagi: Douceur d'Été

Decided to try for Tadashi Yanagi agian by going on the correct day to Shinjuku Takashimaya. This is a second cake, at least in the current reporting, and a new cake, so definitely not one I had pre-blog: Douceur d'Été ("sweet of the summer", I assume) this time, which is a harmony of lemon cream and milky cream (whatever that is; sounds awful but wasn't) several caramelized hazelnuts inside and decaration including chocolate and almond slices. Lemon cream can be very nice, if fairly intense, which this was and the hazelnuts were a nice surprice. So now I have two shops that I've had two excellent cakes from that deserve a try-out for the excellent shop list, which has openings, not even including a couple that probably should be demoted.

Cycling, I visted Bien-être again and found that the pistachio chiboust that I saw just over a week ago and wanted for a cake-off tomorrow has already evolved into another cake. Like last time, the window for this cake was very small. I'm disappointed, but wanted new cakes from them, so I'll get there again soon anyway. Still need to figure out what the cake-off will be instead.

P. Ikeda: Cassiser

Tuesday, I went to Shinjuku Takashimaya looking for something different and got a cake from Patisserie Ikeda via the Patisseieria, which may be their only Tokyo distributor. They count as a neighborhood cake shop, so I felt obligated to try them, though nothing looked very appealing. Maybe I should have gone with cheesecake again, but I choose Cassiser, or at least that is my guess at the spelling, if there is a French spelling. It's cassis mousse and cherry custard cream. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, it was not any better than it looked. Not that it tasted bad, it was ok, but what seemed like a not very good idea was not improved by the execution, though I'm not an audience for the this cake, so this shop and its cake might be fine for someone else.

Exercise was about an hour of riding over the more extreme parts of yesterday's shadowing of the east Yotsuka neighborhood course, though in the reverse direction (so the worst slope I could do going up), plus one lap around Akasaka Palace Grounds. Then it was push-ups at home.

Wednesday, I cycled again, toward Ginza, stopping by P. Shima to verify that they still had the same pastries that I've tried previously, which they do. At Ginza Mitsukoshi, I tried again and failed to get the basic cream puff from F. Cassel (sold out), and instead got a couple Mini Pain aux Raisins from Dalloyau. Even perhaps a little not fresh at the end of the day, they were excellent.

L'Éclair de Génie: Chocolat Grand Cru, Caramel Salé, and Vanille Pecan

Wanted cake for two on Wednesday, so I went to Shinjuku Takashimaya. On the way, though, I stopped by Toshi Yoroizuka visiting Isetan and saw that Annya (tart-based rhubarb and red fruit cake) was back, which was useful information for the next cake-off (second round, loser's).

For Takashimaya, I didn't check which shops were available at the cafeteria-style patisserie counter, so I wasn't surprised when the ones that I wanted were not there (just need to remember not to go on Wednesday again). I selected instead L'Éclair de Génie from among by backups, and got the Chocolat Grand Cru, Caramel Salé, and Vanille Pecan. These were all good, so I wasn't disappointed, but not exciting, so I probably won't be back again.

Tadashi Yanagi: Praliné Croustillant

Friday, due to not feeling totally well the previous two days (maybe a mild cold), no running again, but I had skipped Thursday and needed to look at computers again (still using a loaner, which is very nice, except being tiny, though that was what made it easily portable so that I could borrow it), so I got cake in the Shinjuku Station areas again, again at Takashimaya; I'm nothing if not a creature of habit. This time, I could and did choose from Tadashi Yanagi a new cake (apparently) called Praliné Croustillant, which, besides the totally obvious, has chocolate. This cake has some of my favorite elements, so it should be no surprise that I like it. That and erring on the positive side, I'll say that it was excellent. This brand might be the best choice at Takashimaya, though as a shop, I recommend Au Bon Vieux Temps, just I'm not sure that their best stuff gets to Takashimaya.

Ecole Criollo: Slim Rarecheese Fraise

Last Wednesday, I went to actually pick up my broken computer and do some shopping. Didn't do any actual running, but I think that was the day I went out by bicycle and stocked up on roasted peanuts for making peanut butter.

As cake, I went down to the Shinjuku (Station) Takashimaya and got cake there from Ecole Criollo, whose shop I could visit on a weekday, if I wanted to run down to Nakameguro. I got Slim Rarecheese Fraise (though the card might have abbreviated this as just Cheesecake Fraise), which is half rare cheesecake and half sponge cake and strawberry gelatin (in the picture, it looks like the cheesecake dominates, but actually they are equal. This was definitely good and had a good balance between cheesecake and strawberry flavor. This shop is associated with low/no sugar cakes and I was previously unimpressed, so I was not in a hurry to revisit them, but this was better than expected.

Peck: Connoli (Chocolate)

Had to go check on my still broken computer on Monday and start shopping for a new one. For my pasty, I got a connoli from Peck, the chocolate one (which includes hazelnut cream). It was definitely good, which is probably why it often sells out so that I wasn't even sure that Peck had anything of the pastry variety (though they have a cinnamon bun).

Puissance: Delice

Monday was a pastry day, so after checking Bubo B. and finding nothing, I went back to Toukyuu Food Show for a third time and finally visited Boulangerie La Terre, which had the best selection of pastries (ignoring Andersen, which I visit at Isetan). I got their Pain au Chocolat, which was excellent, in that it was a proper pain au chocolat and did not disappoint. After my previous two visits to the Food Shop, the bar was pretty low, but I would like to go back to B. La Terre.

For running, I worked on learning my big neighborhood course loop southwest of Shibuya Station. Just there and back is a sufficient run in itself, so I just did three kilometer markers worth and came back.

Tuesday, I went to Takashimaya to hit another new shop from their selections and scope out a café fpr tje weelend. This time, it was Puissance and I got Delice, which is a standard almond buiscuit with layers of flavored cream, in this case strawberry. It's simple and not too exciting but it was good. My main worry with this type of cake would be that it would be too sweet or too strong a strawberry flavor, but no such problems.

The run was continuing where I left off previously (at The Bake, actually). This time I only did 2 kilometer markers. Tomorrow I'll probably practice the last part, although really only half of that will be on the next run, since I want to continue on toward Hiroo, though I won't get to much far this time.

Planetes: Regular Chocolate

Well, it's been 48 hours since a 60+ km run and I seem to be okay. Had a little scare with a rash across my front (which I get from sweat/heat when I'm weak), due to not paying attention to my skin yesterday, probably, but it seems to be almost completely recovered by now. I did a short run of a little under 6 km to confirm the part of the Sendagaya northeast loop where I forgot to turn and then confirmed a direct route across northern Sendagaya. I need to start cutting across neighborhoods quicker if I want to reach farther neighborhoods without cheating or running to long. My speed was safely above 9 km/h. I'm not sure that I need to go so far as last Sunday again, but if I do, I want to increase my average speed to above 8 km/h (not necessary, but not being able to do it is one sign that I'm tiring myself more than necessary, maybe) and also increase my calorie intake, to see how that helps with extreme fatigue, which was not that bad but was the only trouble I really had, to my surprise, that and the rash, which is probably related.

For cake, I didn't want to go far, so I headed to Isetan, forgetting that they are taking a holiday today. Next I went to Takashimaya Shinjuku (which is actually also in Sendgaya, Shibuya-ku, but is right next to Shinjuku Station) and got something from P. les Planetes. I know not to expect much from Takashimaya's cake counter and I didn't even write down the name of what I got (which was only written phonetically), but it seemed to be Regular Chocolate, so I'm sticking to that. Online, the most similar cake that I could find was the Chocolat Framboise, which this is not, since this seems to have cassis as well as raspberries. Perhaps because I didn't let it warm up much from the refrigerator before starting to eat it, the top layer of chocolate (which it needs to seal in the moisture, whereas the sides had plastic) was overly gelatinous, but the taste and texture of the cake was fine. Nothing exciting, but good.

Nana Gâteaux: Mont-Blanc

Did a (two-) neighborhood run and also got a cake from a new (for me) neighborhood shop, Nana Gâteaux, in Sendagaya, which is a neighborhood that I'm not that familiar with. The shop is sort of a café, though they told me no eating in today (I was arriving ten minutes before closing, which is only 7 pm, so I was not surprised). Eventually I'll get around to taking pictures of it in the day time, but I haven't finished with my Shinjuku neighborhoods yet for that. I jogged with the cake and finished both of my latest neighbor routes, Sendagaya and (north) Jinguumae, without mistakes and without looking at the map, so gone ahead and tentatively made the one for northeast Harujuku-Omotesandou (central Jinguumae), which is simple, so I should learn the route, at least, quickly. I need to catch up on the photos and learning the names.

The Mont-blanc was fine. It certain would not challenge any of the better shops, but I'm not sure about less shops, as I usually would not go straight for Mont-blanc, but the selection was limited as expect. Not very big or particular cheap for the size. I'm kind of whining, which it probably does not deserve. Anyway, I'll call it good and not expect to be back there any time soon, which is the best I expected from a random shop.