Cake-off: L'Abricotier's Sicilien Figue over Libertable's Charm

Continuing the trend, I did my traveling with 10 intervals of 4-min running, starting from about 10 am. First I went to L'Abricotier to get their Sicilien Figue (Cicilien Figue? For some reason my spelling notes from the shop are especially irregular). The rain was light to none, so I could pick up a couple pictures of not very interesting parks for my map and verify that what Google thought was a cake shop was an empty lot. The construction plan posted showed mixed commercial and housing on the shopping street, so it's possible Google is ahead of itself. I came back by train, but making connections from shop to station and station to home, I still used up all 10 running intervals, so after a half-lunch, I went out again walking to Libertable and back. Since I'm reviewing my neighborhood running course through the Harajuku area, I went to the counter in Shibuya Hikarie ShinQs, which was still well stocked at 1:30 pm. Along the way, I verified the nonexistence of a shop but added a couple cafés that marginally expand the proposed new loop for southern Cat Street. On the way back, I popped into one of the chain coffee shops I was considering adding and decided not: the baked goods were plastic wrapped.

This week's cake-off cakes were both zero for two going into the third round and were marked as questionable for staying on the greats list. Against each other though, I'm happy to keep them both on it. Charm is a very creamy and sweet mont-blanc, but I'm choosing the fruity flavor of the Sicilien Figue. Looks like I'm back to owing L'Abricotier a cake. Well, I've never had their cream puff, so I'm sure I'll be able to find something new, but it's going to take a couple weeks, as I'm busy next weekend. Also probably no cake-off, but maybe a visit to new fancy tea salon.

Cake-off; Bien-être's Pistachio & Grapefruit Chiboust over L'Abricotier's Sicilien Figue

Saturday was cake-off day this weekend. I wasn't sure about Bien-être, which doesn't open until 11 a.m., so I first ran out to around Hatsudai to take some pictures of sights in that area for my neighborhood map. I've decided that my priority in doing (one-way) neighborhood runs is how many loop courses out they are, counting fro Samonchou, so I'll get to this one before Hiroo (though actually I went there because I could end up at Bien-être by a reasonable path). Too hot really, so I only ran about 30 minutes before it became almost completely walking and taking pictures. Got to Bien-être at opening (they don't actually have a sign to flip, just the other people outside didn't seem that intent so I just went in at 11 sharp and ordered my cake. Went to L'Abricotier by train for Sicilien Figue, which still involved walking a ways in the heat.

This was another pistachio cake comparison, this time a second-round contest between first-round losers, and this time I could confirm that the grapefruit went with the pistachio and choose the Bien-être cake for the win. Since the flavors were similar, it was hard to tell whether the other cake needed to be in the great list at all, so I've put the L'Abricotier on notice, so to speak.

In the evening, I went running again, a one-way run down to immediately north of Shibuya station, which I haven't run before, even as a local test run (without doing neighborhood paths the long way). I had to walk a lot of the new crowded bits and double-check my map, but it was fine. I reminded me that I have an untried local cake shop down there that I can use as a back-up some time (probably won't need it this week). It was maybe 100 minutes of running. Huge crowd around the Gaien Stadium due to people coming out of a fireworks competition (on the outbound, the streets weren't too crowded, but I was unfortunate with the wind and it got pretty smoky in one part, and of course noisy for quite a while). I should mention that I stopped for a large, very expensive, just okay doughnut (Van Houten Chocolate...) from Good Town Doughnuts and Coffee, so don't do that.

Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Breteuil versus L'Abricotier's Sicilien Figue

Did a run out to L'Abricotier to get a Sicilien Figue to do a cake-off against Frédéric Cassel's Breteuil, a greate cake that finally became available again that was bottom of my list (for some reason, by list is from most recent cake to most in the past) for a cake-off. The run was short of 10 km, due to walking from Isetan to the northwest edge of the main Shinjuku underground tunnel system, despite running down from L'Abricotier to the Marunouchi Line, which is about another 1.5 km. I justified my laziness by the fact that I had ran the night before, I was going to busy this weekend and still had things to do in preparation the required physical energy, so I didn't want to exhaust myself running Friday (it's Culture Day, so three-day weekend), and running carrying cake does not seem good for tendinitis in the arms, which I still have concerns about. I took the train all the way to Ginza (on the same train, which is why I didn't use the nearest line from L'Abricotier) to get the second cake and then took the train home (because, by that point, the first cake was loosing it's ice and if running carrying cake is bad, then running carrying two cakes is twice as bad).

Suspecting a problem, I started with a bite of Sicilien Figue. It had a distinctive fig and pistachio taste that had caught my attention previously to make me designate it as great. Then I started on the Breteuil, which is a super-rich pistachio dome cake; I should dislike it for being a gelatinous (though not sticky) dome cake, it is is so rich, that gelatinousness was not an issue. As a result, the Breteuil easily won the cake-off and I have to give the Sicilient Figue the benefit of the doubt that it really was great, because it's hard to evaluate anything remotely subtle between bites of Breteuil. If you like pistachio, you should definitely get over to Ginza Mitsukoshi and try this.

L'Abricotier: Sicilien Figue

Due to rain, it was not too hot to run today (even after the rain stopped in the afternoon, it was cloudy, so the temperature did not rise so much), and I did rather than cycle, to L'abricotier, even though I ran long yesterday (due to my own mistake) and plan to run long tomorrow. However, I had not need to exhaust myself, and good reason to save some strength for tomorrow (when I'll be racing against closing time), so it was 9 km/h out and 8 km/h backStill, it was not cool and it was presumably 100% humidity. I started out mistakenly taking the path toward Aigre Douce, but they are both northwest, so it was easily correct and actually was probably better than the usual path. In generally, I just switched between north and west depending on the light until I got to Waseda  Road. Coming back, I swung by Jun Honma, just to look in, and then circled around Koenji and came back most by Okubo Road, which is not very direct but was a nice change until I passed Yamanote Line, where the crowds of tourists to the Korean area mad it hard going. Not sure that Yasukuni Road would have been better, but it's less gritty.

The cake, which I ate in, was Sicilien Figue, which is wine-boiled fig in mousse, pistachio cream/mousse (can't remember what the card said, and there were two layers), fruits rouge (of or including raspberries) gelatin, and some pistachio biscuit. I really like a good pistachio cake and am often disappointed. This did not disappoint me, it was, I think great. The pistachio was flavorful, the fig complemented it, and the fruits rouge accented it, everything harmonizing.

As a result, I've decided to return L'abricotier to the Quite Excellent category, though it's a little bloated now (as in real life, preferences are not well-ordered, so there are multiple candidates for getting the boot, though L'abricotier is strictly better than at least one). That takes some pressure off reviewing the less frequented Excellent ones, though I'll get to that soon. Also, it means it's time for another cake-off, so that clarifies my weekend somewhat, and also suggests that maybe Friday night I'll do a cakeless training run so that I can get to a new shop on Sunday.