Noliette, Sicilian

Saturday, I hit one more remote potentially quite fine shops, Noliette out west in the north part (relative to where I usually go, anyway) of Setagaya. I went with the Sicilian. I went by cycle, since I can't run so far and didn't get up early enough to walk very early. Actually, I arrived at opening time and was second. I went with the Sicilian, which in this case was (milk?) chocolate with pistachio. This cake actually survived better by bicycle than I should have expected, but the weak point was the macaron on top, which caused the top to to crack and sag. Chocolate and pistachio is actually a difficult combination, but this was working well. It was definitely good, so I was satisfied. However, it means that I have too many shops with 2 good and 2 excellent cakes to make a cut. I've got a lot of fine shops to go through, so I might find a great cake among them, which is what it would take to make the jump to quite fine. I more likely way to add to the quite fine shops would be to find an excellent cake from some new shops. I've still got three more 3-cake fine shops, two that are really far out (so I'm willing to wait on the off chance that they'll visit a department store in central Tokyo) and one that's pausing on their cake, so one clearly quite fine shop might not be enough.    

Sourire, Sicilian

Working on the last two of the 9 remaining 2-cake possibly quite fine shops that aren't accessible on a weekday, I cycled (since it was above 30 degC at 9 am) out to Sourire. Since I was not willing to buy beverage, I got take out and consumed a box and three ice packs (perhaps I should figure out how to re-use those, but they get dirty easily) bring it back.  That took about an hour. Then I went out for another two hours and hit two shops north looking for maboroshi (phantom, by which I mean not visible) great cakes on the north side, of course not finding either, as always.

After lunch, I had the cake of choice, Sicilian. I didn't actually read the card beyond the name, so I left it as a surprise what was inside. Actually, it remained a surprise as I ate it, but by the end I could tell that the center mousse was (milk?) chocolate. It harmonized better than maybe dark chocolate would, though in general I prefer dark chocolate, if not necessarily with pistachio, but still, I don't think it was a good choice over fruit, which I don't generally prefer, though maybe it would work with stronger, fruitier chocolate. It was well-constructed and pretty (and traveled well by bicycle), but I can't rate it higher than "good", so Sourire doesn't make the cut and get sent down to join the fine shops, though in the upper fraction that will make the next cut of them, which I have about 60 too many of.

In the late afternoon/evening, I went for a run to confirm changes to the the Jinguumae central loop to add the Starbucks on the west corner. Noticed a tea shop that should be added on the current route. I need to make a slight change to avoid running through the middle of a outdoor eating area and I confirmed the Starbucks at Omotesando Hills, which replaced a Tully's Coffee, I think.

Wednesday: Maison g Tokyo [Meguro Gajoen]: Sicilian

I'm behind, as I've been busy, including making macarons yesterday, including both the shells and the ganache filling. My ganache recipe didn't work out well, and the macarons were still not perfect. I should work on some other recipes next time.

The run was 15.0 km/h sprints, actually. I had thought I could manage 200 m, since I had gotten close on 300 m when doing 13.0 km/h intervals, but I messed up my chronometer on the first one and then the second was 0.22 s too slow (actually one was 225 m, because it's the last part of the course). That's within my error on self-timing, but I want to clearly make the goal, so I switched to 100 m sprints. That I could do, but all (six) of them came out 16 km/h, with two actually reaching 16.0 km/h. After that training run, I went down to Tokyo Midtown (at about 10 km/h) to confirm something and then back to Lawson 100 for groceries.. So about 6 km around 10 km/h about 1 km around 15 km/h.

I had already gotten my cake from the visiting Isetan counter, which is called maison g Tokyo, but is part of Meguro Gajoen, a wedding ceremon, complex, I think, so I'm not sure how welcome I would be if I show up down there sweaty, but we'll see. I got what they said was the specialty, and they use a picture of it on the Meguro Gajoen for the link to the cake shop, though aren't featuring it there. This is the Sicilian, which used pistachios and almonds, so definitely my kind of cake. Because of that, I'm not sure whether my finding it excellent says much about the quality of the shop, but is see when I follow up.

Le Précieuse (No running)

This time I bought closer to home, at La Précieuse, although the bag and card say Le Milieu, which seems to be the home base, in Kanazawa.

Got the Sicilian. Not sure what was in it. Sorry, out of the habit. It's pistachios, I know, baked to be hard (maybe a meringue), and then a cream/custard layer with fruit, strawberry, maybe, although just small pieces. It was 470, which was reasonable (though it is small), and it also traveled well by bike, which is important now, since I can't run. More importantly, it was excellent, so I should get back there, which is pretty easy to do, although while I'm not running I'll probably limit my cake. But a couple cakes during the week would be nice. Also, I have a baking disaster that I need to either eat up or throw away, that I don't want to write further about other than to say, I'm going to try again next weekend.