Bigarreaux: Marius

Took a half-day off and walked and ran to Bigarreaux. As usual, started off too fast and averaged 6.2 km/h in the walking part. 3 km in, I "ran" 2 km at 7 km/h. Now it's very natural for me to run the same speed I walk. No problem yet. Not sure whether I'll raise my distance before replacing my walking with running, but I'm ready to introduce 8 km/h running. Coming back I just walked, averaging 5.8 km/h, so I'm just going to pretend all the walking was at 6 km/h, in terms of my budget, which I haven't used up but will be busy the next couple days (but will definitely get some cake in anyway).



At Bigarreaux, where I ate in; I had Marius for 540 yen. It tasted how I should have expected, so I should learn to analyze and choose more wisely, since it was not my thing. It's three layers of biscuit (probably almond), too layers of cassis (blackcurrant) buttercream, and one layer of apricot gel. It was good and well constructed, but I'm not that into that fruity a cake. Actually, the apricot was too weak for me (I didn't read the card that far when I was there and wasn't sure it wasn't mango): two layers apricot, one layer cassis might have been better for me.

That's 0 for 3 in my attempt to introduce near-great shops into my evaluations. Of course, I'm working my way up the from the bottom by virtue of looking at the ones I have the fewest cakes from, since they are all earlier drop-outs from my original potentially great list. Eventually, I'll have to weaken the criterion, but I'll try a few more first.

Yu Sasage: Symphanie

Took a long walk, 23+ km round trip, to Yu Sasage at a good speed (little over 6 km/h going, a little under 6 km/h coming back). I'm tired, but the leg seems sound. However, I've hit 101% walking/running load relative to my peak as of 1 week ago and I didn't exercise last Sunday, so I don't have the budget for a full-speed round trip Nihonbashi, which is my goal, so I either need to take the train back (which could be justified if I buy perishables) or take the bicycle out for the first time in a while and figure out how to count that in my budget (in terms of calories, its about 1/4 running for slow riding, supposedly, but calories don't really capture the physical strain, which is what I'm after).

Unfortunately, Yu Sasage let me down. I'd already had both the specialties displayed, and there were a lot of new things, maybe because they were coming off a holiday, but I chose one of the couple other things. This has mascarpone cheese, cream, and an earl grey biscuit. It started off good, and I was considering whether it was excellent. It had a kind of fruity flavor, in addition to the tea. For some reason, though, by the second half, the fruity sweetness was not working for me. Honey in that top layer? Not sure, and not sure honey would be a problem, but ultimately, I can't say this is good. It mostly worked or worked most of the way, so I'll say it was "ok". Maybe it just caught me at a bad time or it needs a particular beverage; I had water, but since it's already tea, I wouldn't think it needed anything else to balance it. It's supposed to already be a balance. Sorry, forgot again to get a shop picture. And cake fell over, so it got a little smushed.

Walking to Limevert: Mer

Had a half day off today, so walked to Limevert patisserie café, which took about 13 km at I guess 5 km/h (had trouble with starting and stopping chronometer correctly), sometimes in heavy rain (tｙphoon pasｓing through tonight). Happy keeping it slow, as I want to work on my distance before trying again to regain some speed. Managed to follow the correct route in the middle for once going to this area.

The end is easy, because I'm following the elevated train line for several stations. Never can remember the station name (Soshigaya-ohkura), but recognize Ultraman (not sure what the connection is, and there's at least one more in Yokohama).

Shop does not really stand out and is narrow, but they have the usual stuff and pastries. Already ordered the canelé (230 yen) for the road before noticing the bostock (which would have been hard to eat neatly walking down the street), but it was good (it was a well-baked one, which I like over soft ones).

The Mer (550 yen) is various things: earl grey flavo(u)red milk chocolate, apricot gelatin, and caramel walnuts. It was definitely excellent and I'm going to call it great because I haven't had one this before and I'd like to have it again. For good or bad, the flavor makes me think of pie. For one thing, it's not very firm, but it took a while to bring it back. Not sure what the connection to the "Sea" is.

Almost forgot, tried a couple more caramels from Henri le Roux yesterday: Citron Vert (lime) and Diable Rose (banana, raspberry, and passion fruit). Very good candy and it's interesting to taste very good candy, but I prefer the chocolates.

Ran out to potentially great shop Yu Sasage. I should probably mark this route (and routes for other main destinations), since it is a pretty good route and this shops seems like it at least is going to end up as an excellent shop. Most of the run is along Tokyo City Road 431 Tsunohazuiisumi-town Line, which is also an old water transport road. Lots of parks. From the end, at Inogashira Road, you can pick of a park route that crosses the train line and puts you in front of Meiji University. Passing that and the neighboring temple complex, you can get back a on a series of linear parks and parallel roads that runs parallel to the main highway (4) all the way to where 20 splits off. At the split I took 20 (after Ring Road 8, you can take a local road, but I remembered that it's pretty crowded for running, so I took the longer route) to the light just west of Yu Sasage before cutting south and then back a block for Yu Sasage. It's about 12.6 km and I managed a moderate pace. I was slow coming back (although I might have managed moderate but for the congestion around Shinjuku Station) a slightly longer 12.75 km route, due to staying on the park on the east side of Meiji University too long (although knowing that there is a relatively big public toilet building there, is good, as the main strip park on the other side has just one more limited one).

That gives me a 2-day distance of 51.5 km, which might be the most I've done post-injury, so more than I probably should have done after a training break for a cold (which my left knee was quite willing to tell me fairly early on, although I slowed down and kept it under control). The 4-to-7-day distance then is 63.3 km, which doesn't leave me a lot for the next 3 days in my 7-day running budget of 85 km (which I can raise to 95 km after Wednesday). Of course, I could just rest tomorrow, but it's a holiday (for the Spring Equinox), so I'd like to get out. Perhaps I'll take the bicycle to Jiyugaoka, for Paris S'éveille (which I can run to during the week, theoretically, but is a little tough and uses a lot of kilometers) and maybe Cuoca, although in the latter case, I should check Mitsukoshi first, which is in the opposite direction.

But to the cake, that being a main theme. I didn't prepare my camera, but the phone camera worked reasonably okay, even if I can't see the image on the screen well enough when I'm taking the picture. The cake is the Sicilienne, which was introduced in December (on their Facebook page, anyway) and is 500 yen. Outside, is pistachio mousse (with maybe pistachio cream on top, along with pistachios and a cherry), and cherry mousse and gel inside. Something that sounds like "Fond du Roche" adds crunch, but I can't find a Japanese phonetic French to actual French translation. The cake looks like it might be gelatinous, but actually, at least for me, the outside was more like a thick sauce than gelatin, and covered an airy pistachio mousse. The taste and test was excellent. I could say that this was great, but I don't really like cherry so much in my cake, so I'm going to have to hold back with excellent, even if it seems perfect for what it is.