[Sat] Limevert: Noir Chocolat

Saturday was another long research ride. I tried the technique of asking, which rarely works (Hidemi and Viron it did, but those are pretty high-end with long histories, so I'm not surprised that the staff has some knowledge of the schedule, unlike part-time staff at less famous places). Also, I spent a lot of time lost from not trying to follow a particular path; too many rivers make too few straight roads, so on a cloudy day, it's easy to get turned around. More than once I had to reverse course once I realized where I was, but at least I never completed loop myself. Need to find out about mounting a smartphone with a map app to my bicycle.

At Limevert, I got the Noir Chocolat, which is dark chocolate with some nuts over chocolate mousse with probably Bavarian cream flavored by earl grey. It was well composed and so should perhaps have been excellent, but perhaps because I have a lot of chocolate, I couldn't say that this was interesting enough that I would want to make it even if I could, which is my working definition of excellent cake (not that I've done any baking at all lately, which is a problem, because I have two eggs at the limit of their usability, perhaps: 3 months past "expiration"). Although not pretty, I'm including a half eaten version so that the inside is visible. I'll without hold that from Twitter version and would certainly not post that to Instagram (which I've yet to post to, since I don't have a smartphone, but see the above related remark to guess my future shopping plans).

As almost the last shop (I stopped at the Ginza Mitsukoshi on the way back), I also got a pasty from Éclat des Jours for the first time, a Kouign Amann. This was usual, in that what would usually be a single solid crystal of caramelize sugar was instead left almost completed granular, melted only just enough to make it stick together. I'm not convinced that its a better idea, but its was interesting to try. Also, this seemed like the saltiest puff pastry I've ever had, though not to a point of being a problem.

Limevert: Fromage Citron

I planned cycling today when I was thinking that I would run longer on Saturday and would need the rest in order to run again on Monday, which is still somewhat true. It certainly will keep me from being worried about the weekday runs and I'm going to try again to do a 40+ km run next weekend, so it doesn't hurt to keep things lighter this weekend. Still, I planned longer (30+ km), and got more lost, making it even long, because I was cycling.

First I went up to Aigre-Douce again, just because I missed seeing or at least remembering their cake that was planned as the primary in the next cake-off (I found it this time). Then I continued along Mejiro Avenue to Yamanote Avenue and turned off onto Honan Avenue, which was correct, but

turned too early from there, though at least was going south. I eventually got to Limevert, where I got the Fromage Citron (540 yen), chosen somewhat arbitrarily from things I haven't had, but it was definitely excellent. It's cheesecake, of course, with rare cheesecake on top (mousse) accented with lemon and a thin solid layer of baked cheesecake on the bottom with another layer of citrus (the card only mentioned lemon, but the color was different here and not as sour, but it could have been lemon too). Note sure whether the fruit helped or hurt it, but I'd be curious to have it without.

Limevert: Chocolat Framboise

Took a run to P. & café Limevert via Fraoula (no luck again on the cake I want), getting off course very soon out of Fraoula, which was standard all day, although I wasn't trying very hard to stay on course coming back, just letting the crossing signal dictate changes. We're in sakurayuki ("cherry snow") by now, but I wasn't running through the famous places and it's just a little misty, so didn't have any problems with crowds, even though I was running noon to 4 pm.

The cake was Chocolate Framboise and was pretty standard, with raspberry ganache between layers of moist (from the ganache, but maybe some liquor; I didn't read the card beyond the name, but something I looked at had alcohol and I think it was this) chocolate sponge cake. It was definitely good and I like chocolate a lot and raspberry, but I guess this standard cake doesn't really work that well for me. I'm not sure what I want instead. Maybe a raspberry chocolate tart (that is, something that looses the sponge cake). Still a quite excellent shop that needs another visit soon, though I also need to get to Abricotier and Yu Sasage, as weekend priorities. Maybe I can manage Abricotier in two weeks, since it's the nearest and I want to do a 50 km run the next day, including a visit to a new History and Culture course (three more to do, I think).

Limevert: Pruneau

For my long run of the week, I went over to Limevert again, taking a longer path of going south to the middle of Aoyama Cemetary before heading west to Roppongi Ave and then over to my usual route down to Old Oyamate Ave. (though I took the southern branch for some reason) and then down to follow Meguro River northwest and then the green path to Umegaoka, and from there along the train line.

I ate in again (obviously) and got chocolate again, this time Pruneau (580 yen) according to the French, but the Japanese name seems to be phonetic for "Brick" (though wrote down "Buritta": hard to write those cards). This is a couple solid chocolate sticks on top, then cocoa powder, chocolate mousse, chocolate cream, a little unlisted chocolate sponge (probably for cohesion), chocolate ganache, and finally a feuillantine base for crunch. I'm not completely confident, but I'm going to say it was great and look forward to testing that in the future.

From there, I went back a different route so I could stop by at Fraoula because I had overlooked that theirs was the first cake I rated here as great, so I should have started with them (I was greedy back then and had two great cakes on that day). Unfortunately, though they were happy to see me again, it seems to be something that they make on an irregular schedule. They offered to give me a call when they made it next, but my schedule is a little more complicated than that and I don't mind stopping in occasionally. I bought there Croissant d'Almonde, which was great. It is the soft kind, maybe with almond syrup, but the powered sugar definitely was part of the appeal for me. More than for cakes, this is a quite excellent place for the few pastry they make, so I need to get there more often just for that, though I'm not sure whether I've missed anything at this point.

Limevert: Chiboust Chocolat

Today, I went to an under-visited potentially (because I've still only sampled a few cakes) quite excellent shop, Limevert, which is along the Odakyu Odawara Line, Soshigayaohkura Station, in Soshigaya, Setagaya-ku. To avoid Shibuya, I went by way of the road west from Yoyogi Station. It's about 13 km each way, which I did averaging 10 km/h, though faster out than back. They have a relatively big (several tables) café space set up, so I ate in, as you can tell from the photo.

The cake is Chiboust Chocolat (540 yen), which is a disk of chocolate chiboust on a raspberry custard tart (no nuts, the little nuggets are crust) and excellent, so I suppose I'll be back there again next weekend, conditions permitting. Think I'll try the slightly more direct rough through Harajuku, though, more for variation than dissatisfaction with today's route.