Jean-Paul Hévin: Bûchette Gatsby

Monday I tried a second cake from the Jean-Paul Hévin special Christmas series, Bûchette Gatsby, which is baked flour-less chocolate biscuit, vanilla chiboust, and mild 68% chocolate mousse. This time, I ate the cake turned on its side and it was great. Of course, the greatness might depend on other things, but one issue with this much decorative chocolate on a cake is the shape of the fragments when eaten, which cutting laterally rather than vertically makes a big difference too. (Note that the tongue interprets bumpiness as bitter, I think). I hope to have similar luck on number three on Wednesday. I have a lot of time-limit cakes I'm trying to get to, so I still haven't gotten back to my last cake-off winner. That will probably not happen until next week.

For running, I went down (by the shortest route) to a connector in my neighborhood map (under heavy revision) between the SW Aoyama part and the SE Aoyama part and then did the one loop. Originally, a loop around the Ginjuu Stadium would have have been included with this, but the bridge is out, so that part remains cut off (and it's connected by a bridge, so in the revised version, it would be considered a a separate course). Anyway, I needed to look at my map during this first run, but it's a very simple route, simple street pattern, and familiar area, so I don't expect to have to practice it much.

Monday I went to P. Shima again and got their Croissant and their Pain aux Raisins. Unfortunately, I did not think about how cold it would be (I'm used to cake, where I want it cold), so I didn't really eat them under optimal conditions. I'll need to standardize things, perhaps, and redo all reviews to be serious about pastries. I'll mention that I got two not because I was feeling greedy, but because I was cheap: 260 yen pastry become two for 400 yen after 6 pm, so I got both this week's pastries. I'll maybe bake at home on Friday, if I need something. I ran on nearby bits of neighborhoods around Akasaka and found flaws and that there is a Ginza Cozy Corner that I hadn't noticed (not at all recommended, but I ought to include it on the map and route and so sample and post about it eventually, unfortunately).

Jean-Paul Hévin: Bûchette O'clock

As planned, I did a long (~35 km) run through the 7 neighborhood courses that I had been practicing/revising so far. Through no special effort (as I haven't memorized any distance points), I at least averaged my target speed, which was 8 km/h. I was very satisfied with this experience, compared to running long main roads deep into the suburbs for the same distance, though now I want to decompose all the courses into their constituent loops and links and further simplify where I can. I'll give up avoiding overlapping and instead try to stick to what I think are the best roads for the goal. On the way, besides a couple packets of cookies, I got a yeast croissant from Heart Bread Antique, which opened my eyes to their maybe be split between bread croissants and pastry croissants, which is also probably true of other breads/pastries. Not sure whether it is worth making a distinction, but I'm after pastries. Still, this croissant was good and they definitely have other things that I'm willing to call pastries, so I'm expanding the corresponding map to include it (obviously, I did that already just before running, but I still hadn't added an icon).

The cake of the day, after I got back, was Bûchette O'clock from Jean-Paul Hévin, part of the their week-before-Christmas lineup. They had something like this last year that I only noticed on the last time and had time for one, which I had thought was excellent, but this one, while good, wasn't special to me. It's bergamot orange biscuit, yuzu chiboust, raspberry compote, and Madagascar cacao mousse. There's also lots of decorative chocolate, but the cake was a little soft and bland for me and the decorative chocolate did not really add the right texture element to balance it. Maybe I didn't eat it right or maybe fancy cake isn't what I want after a long run (though I ate a normal lunch first). Anyway, it's JPH, which is my top priority, so I'll make a point to get to the other cakes regardless and see whether they work better for me. In the meantime, I need to work on updating my old neighborhood area maps and trying on the next. When I get it up to 50+ km total, I'l maybe try another long run over the set.

Pierre Hermé: Cheesecake Céleste

Made another visit to Pierre Hermé, who started selling their next theme (though they still have some of the previous one), which is Céleste. I got the Cheesecake Céleste, since it had been a while since I had tried one of their cheesecakes and some of the have been excellent or great.

For running, I went down to my farthest neighborhood that I've planned and tried and made the second attempt, after considerable changes. I wasn't perfect, but it went pretty good, as far as following the planned course checking the map as little as possible. I took some pictures, now that a new building showed what it could do with all that spaces in front of it (it's a media company, I think): Christmas Circus. Totally secure Christmas is popular this time of year, pretty much straight from Halloween, though there is overlap with fall leaf viewing, which we're just seeing the end of in central Japan. Note that the building behind the tree is next door, not the building in front of the tree.

The cake was definitely good. I'll even call it excellent. It's got a lot going on, from a sablé base, biscuit infused with passion fruit and a harmony of strawberry and rhubarb.

Pierre Hermé: Mille-feuille Infiniment Vanille

Felt better today than earlier in the week, so I'm more optimistic. First, I went to Isetan Pierre Hermé and got the Mille-feuille Infiniment Vanille. For running, I did the latest version of my Central-East Sendagaya neighborhood course (okay, I'm lying: I deviated to a parallel road at one point, which added 25 meters, but it wasn't a place I needed practice on). I was slower than I expected, even with more pauses than usual for maneuvering cars and the amount of stairs and slopes: 8 km/h. I only ran about 7 km, but I feel I can raise and the speed tomorrow. I guess I'll try to hit the Marunouchi/Ginza area south of Tokyo Station, but Pierre Hermé doesn't change their line up until next Tuesday and JPH is also showing no changes on their home page, so it might be too early to do the rounds to find out what the new cakes are for December.

The Mille-feuille Infiniment Vanille was reliably delicious, especially after recent experience but they are dependable that way, which is why I rate them highly for a place for new cakes. I'll call this one Excellent, though that might be overly based on my preference for mille-feuille cakes.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Feuilletine Praliné over Bigarreaux's Le Plaisir

As planned, I took advantage of Bigarreaux's simultaneous reintroduction of their Le Plaisir and their visit at Isetan to do a midweek cake-off. I took a chance, in that I didn't confirm that Bigarreaux even had their Le Plaisir at Isetan or that it was not sold out before buying the  Feuilletine Praliné at Jean-Paul Hévin because I saw that there was only one of the latter left. Fortunately, it worked out fine (Bigarreaux's was not mobbed on a Thursday; Friday would be harder day, but I would have asked to reserve me a cake for tomorrow if either had been sold out and I hope that it would have been possible, though I've never tried it).

The run was to try my neighborhood run around Omotesando Hills. I had included some more little parks, including one I've now just labeled as No-name Shibuya-ku Park, since it is maintained by that park system but does not seem to merit a name (which is understandable). Also, I expanded my runs farther into the interial, which I'm less thrilled with. Narrow dark streets are not so fun (it was nice to reach the temple and graveyard, as that is a lot less creepy than in interial road going by a dark educational institute---at least that as much as the sign told me) and streets with fast moving taxis are also no fun, so I'm bumping my made back to the main street and shrinking a new loop back to just running around the block. It was 8+ km at about 9 km/h.


Cake-off: these were both definitely great cakes, so I'm completely satisfied with no cake tomorrow and heading out to explore a new place Saturday morning. Both are chocolate, but the Le Plaisir has caramel and orange, whereas Feuilletine Praliné has, obviously praliné, as well as meringue. The Le Plaisir would probably win against an average great cake, if there is such a think, but the Feuilletine Praliné is so great and so much of what I like that it is not hard to select it as the winner. I high recommend getting either both before they stop being available.

I'll probably wait at least a week before the next cake-off, but I can justify the high frequency back a backlog of JPH cakes and hope that more ones will appear in December (though I'm not sure what will be left to match them against unless I find some more great cakes soon: November hasn't been very productive in that way. 

[Sat. thru Mon.] Jean-Paul Hévin: Kouglof Chocolat & Kouglof Chocolat Caramel Salé

I'm behind posting. Part of that is too much time fiddling with my Neighborhood map, for which I took a bunch of pictures for parts of the SE of Yotsuya 3choume neighborhood, which has 55 total items (about half temples, but also shrines, parks, churches, cake shops, and similar), which I've finally fully memorized. Still need to attach all the photos I have, but some of them need fixing (the ones taken vertically need to be edited and saved twice in order for them to appear correct).

Cake was a visit to the Jean-Paul Hévin chocolate bar at Isetan, where I got the kouglof cake set which gives you slices of both the chocolate and chocolate salted caramel version) with Chocolat Chaud Framboise (I think; haven't been studying my French). This came with whipped cream for the cake, which otherwise does not really qualify as "fresh" cakes, since it's more like a torte, though I am not yet making that distinction, since I don't usually by pound cake, or "weekend cake" or other cakes that you aren't told to eat that day. The cake was definitely good, but no competition for their usual fresh cakes, and the hot chocolate was excellent, which is better than average, I suppose.

Running for the weekend did not come until Friday night, where I just missed completing the Sendagaya neighborhood run without mistakes (I added Sendagaya 4choume Children's Play Park, which Google doesn't identify and turned too early on the new leg), so I think I'll be okay going forward and try a longer run with this as a component. I also did a run through the next one south, which is centered around Jinguumae 3choume, looking frequently at my phone. Found one part quickly where I'm going to need to turn back toward the center to find a crosswalk without a crossing light, but the bigger problem is the bridge on the southeast is closed for construction, so I can't use it to connect to the Aoyama course. To get there account to my rules, I need to construct the map for the neighborhood north of Omotesando Station and the connecting one for South Aoyama to come on the Aoyama one from the south. I ran about 10 km total at 9 km/h. Monday, I ran 21+ km at 10+ km/h out and 9+ km/h back with no cake to show for it, but I was still feeling bloated from the rest of the weekend (after JPH), that I'm fine with just adding some pasta and tomato to dinner rather than something sweet.

Pierre Hermé: Yu

Did another neighborhood run to learn the Southeast Sendagaya course. Made too early a turn after the station where I changed the map (or tried to; Google reverted it) and overshot going around Zuienji loop, the southeast one, and apparently ended up going around it twice, which surprized me at the time, since I though I reverse direction at one point and went around a corner, but quickly found that I hadn't, but at least it gave me another chance to make the correct turn turns. I also followed the course south of Shinjuku Gyoen over where I messed it up and confirmed that I could do it correctly (at least until the bypass get's finished and that area gets cut off). Total, I think I did about 9 km (including 3 pedestrian bridge crossings) at a low -9 km/h.

New month and new cakes at Pierre Hermé. Rather than following this month's theme, vanilla (which I've had the main one already), I chose Yu, which is yuzu-flavored apple compote inside praliné mousseline on top of hazelnut dacquoise surrounded by milk chocolate. It looks good and has good ingredients of no doubt high quality, but it is all overly mild for me. At the very least, dark chocolate would be an improvement, I think. Still good, but someone it seemed dry, maybe. I had it with Earl Grey tea, so maybe milk as a drink or a side of rich vanilla ice cream would make this better.

Satsuki: Mont-Blanc

Rainy week, not that it's a change from the end of last week. Decided to finally try Satsuki on account of them being at Isetan (until tomorrow). This is literally the most expensive place I know. The featured cake at Isetan is the Extra Super Melon Short Cake, which is 4000+ yen. I went for the regular Mont-blanc, though they have a special triple-plus version.

The run was along the new Short Neighborhood course, just to set a standard time (at a slow pace in the rain), which was 27'35.8'' for 3.94 km. Then I tried the first of the medium ~12 km version that expands west via the southwest corner and filled up the hour. I was running at a low 9 km/h. I measured too with Runtastic, which tends to round the corners, and this was a lot of corners, plus 4 pedestrian overpass crossings, so it lost about 1 km of 9 km, so I still need Google for complicated measurements.

The cake was a very dense, very chestnut (including at least part of one in the middle) Mont-blanc, which may be great for people who like that, but I'm fairly uninterested. Still, good cake and no doubt their other cakes are good, but it's just as well that I won't be working my way through their lineup.

[Fri] Pierre Hermé: Tarte au Potiron

Starting with the cake (which I did, but only the buying part, not the eating part), I got the Tarte au Potiron from Pierre Hermé at Shinjuku Isetan. This is the seasonal cake that is not part of the chestnut and pear theme set.

This is a pumpkin tart with a "tuile", which is French for "tile", but seems like brittle, in this case pumpkin seed brittle, though it could have nuts or something in it to balance it, since at least it was not all whole obvious pumpkins seeds, but just a few. I started on the just pumpkin part and thought, "yup, that's pumpkin", which I've been a fan of as in pumpkin pie. Mixing in a little tuile, though, great balance and this was an excellent tart. Even after the tuile ran out, I was either used to it or had enough sweet aftertaste that it was not too strong a pumpkin for me and was till excellent.

On the running, I'm working on a new ~15 km neighborhood map, as other days, but I still did not get very far without making mistakes and realized that I should add another patisserie, even though I've not blogged it yet (because it's more cafe and somewhere that really needs a recommendation, though I'm probably get around to them eventually), so I cut off the run at 1 hr, which I estimate was 8.5 km. I've learned always to use Runtastic (which I didn't), because even when I'm trying to run a course that I already have an exact measurement for, as likely as not, I've going to get off course. At least this time I backed up and found the correct course each time (and a church that I had forgotten about), so I hope next time goes more smoothly. Today I figured out how to expand the current map considerably without breaking the run of no stops for lights, but I think that'll wait to learn the current map first before I add the next several kilometers or more.

[Th] Pierre Hermé: Mont-blanc Hommage

I'm way behind. I was busy preparing for a busy weekend, and then I got a new phone that I am still setting up and learning to use, like how to get it to stop blinking and sending me endless messages that I (probably) don't need, in Japanese.

But back on Thursday, it was time to visit Pierre Hermé at Shinjuku Isetan and run around the neighborhood course again, which of course, I've send completely revamped to combine all directly (no stop lights) connected paths between temples, shrines, churches, at least semi-public parks (ones that I can enter for free at most times that I would want to), and cake shops (that I've acknowledged). Again, my plan is to label all these at least minimally and add photos where Google Maps lets me (I haven't found it consistent about that). This day, I went about 11 km, I think, but anyway definitely 77 minutes.

The cake was definitely good, but fell in the category of mont-blanc that I'm not into: really dense chestnut paste (with pear, of course, that being the combination for the monthly ones). There are more in this series, but I think I'll got for the pumpkin tart first, which will at least be different.

Friday, I didn't have time to run, but I did have time to get a Cinnamon Danish from Andersen, and this I found excellent. It really is pastry rather than simple a roll.

Pierre Hermé: Tarte Hommage

The October Fetish at Pierre Hermé is already available, and it is chestnut and pear. I got the tart version, Tarte Hommage. Supposedly, it's whipped cream (flavored with chestnut and pear compote), though it seemed thicker at the temperature that I ate it and I'm not really sure that I would want it whipped-cream soft, so I'm not regretting so much that I didn't give it more time to warm up. It was a lot like pie, which is not necessarily bad but not what I'm usually looking for. In the end, I've decided that it was excellent.

For running, I worked on my neighborhood routes and finally finished the one between Yotsuya Sanchoume, Shinanomachi, and Yotsuya Stations without mistake, which is about a 5.6 km by itself and goes up and down steep slopes or stairs several times. Together with being sore from yesterday's run and the rain, 8 km/h seems a reasonable average speed. Having finally achieved the full course, I rewarded myself with the croissant that I didn't manage Tuesday from Paul at Yotsuya Station. Actually, it was just okay; too baked for my taste or or not fresh enough. Of course, I'm also going to have to adjust the routes, since currently they don't really end at convenient locations (I should have them meet at the main intersections so I can transfer to a different route), though I also need to actually learn the landmarks on the route properly. I'm not sure every temple is actually visible, so I might remove some before I finalize the map. The way they cluster, that would probably not actually affect the route.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Mont-blanc over Sadaharu Aoki's Marron Fruits Rouges

As planned, I did a cake-off with Jean-Paul Hévin's Mont-blanc and Sadaharu Aoki's Marron Fruits Rouges from Isetan. First, though I did another run my Naitou neighborhood course, which I changed slightly again, just to avoid the main street another block, and the Daikyouchou neighborhood course, which I did without problems. I was only running 8 to 9 km/h, since it was raining pretty good. I again did most of the Wakaba neighborhood course, which is twice as long and I still haven't done all of. I found another few parks (though not public parks, and one is need in an alley, so I'm not sure that I want to go back in there to visit a designated evacuation area) and a church, so the course is getting a little complicated near Shinanomachi Station. Someday I do the whole thing, maybe by skipping the first two neighborhood courses, but I haven't even memorized all the names of the points of interest yet, though I was able to add a name of a park that Google Maps was hiding from me. I ran 58 min.

The cake was great. Both with chestnut paste and whipped cream, but the JPH one has its thick almond meringue base, whereas the Marron Fruites Rouges obviously has its fruit. Though the tastes are different, it's hard to choose between them, but I'm going with JPH's Mont-blanc, which remains the best mont-blanc that I know. One warning, though, is that it's sweetness can get overpowering by the end, so definitely be prepared with a suitable beverage (I'm drinking shincha lately at home).

Pierre Hermé: Céleste

After yesterday's disappoint, I went to Pierre Hermé at Isetan. Probably I should finish off trying their regular cakes, since there will always be a new "fetish" of the month, but this month's sounded good, so I went with the signature one, the Céleste for 756 yen. This is a sablé base with strawberry and rhubarb confit (basically strawberry slices in sauce). Next up is mascarpone cream flavored with passion fruit, meringue on top, and a whole strawberry. It was definitely excellent cake, although it was not so great that I won't be able to resist sampling the other cakes in this series and visit other shops. No doubt, there will be something good next month as well, if I make it over there again.

But I skipped the running: as planned, despite knee discomfort, I ran. Not sure if that was bad or not: I get discomfort from sitting at my desk, or from my commuting walk, but less than before, I think. At some point, it is not clear what will make things better. I only ran 1 km, in 7'20'' and it does not seem worse than before, but that's been the case for some time. I'll see how things are through tomorrow night.