Origines Cacao: Tarte Exotique

Friday night, for cake, I went by bicycle to Ginza 6 and got Tarte Exotique from origines Cacao, which was back to challenging Sadaharu Aoki, despite being two categories below it.

For running, I went back down to Azabu and finished off the Roppongi 5 loop by doing it counterclockwise. I also got the Azabu-Dai--Azabu-Mamiana-chou--Higashi-Azabu loop correct clockwise, which also was not a huge challenge. I also practiced tried the Moto-Azabu--Azabu-Juuban loop, but I keep finding new things to add and it's got lots of tricky turns southwest of Azabu-Juuban station, where there are lots of shops. Gave up trying the loop further south.

The Tarte Exotique was an excellent substantial tart. I'll have to check again to find out what fruits it has besides pineapple, but it was not overly sweet, which I was fine with. This cake was front loading for when I'm busy next week, though it was also part of an attempt to find a second great cake for the next cake-off, but I found stopping at FC that the cake I was looking for an opponent for has been replaced in the lineup by an Opera.

Frédéric Cassel: Tarte Exotique

Monday and Tuesday were repetitive, in that I went to Ginza Mitsukoshi two days in a row on the off chance that I could get a super-limited cake. I failed both times, but wasn't really surprised. Still, I had good runs and relieved some stress. Monday I got a Pain au Chocolat from Johan. This was definitely good. It was a little more on the bread side than I'm really looking for, but I don't blame them for that, since they are more a typical bakery, not a pâtisserie.

Tuesday, I decided that it was time to take the next step in overcoming my prejudice against coconut by getting the Tarte Exotique from Frédéric Cassel, despite it even having visit shredded coconut (though it does not seem to be raw, thankfully). This has a cacao biscuit shell with a layer of coconut ganache and milk chocolate-coconut ganache, none of which seem like good ideas to me, though I appreciate a nice solid tart. Fortunately, they know what they are doing more than I know what would be good and everything worked well together to make an actually excellent cake, though that might being giving it credit for difficulty, as well as my bias toward this brand.

Sunday cake shop tour: 2nd shop, Lettre D'Amour [Closed]

I made my second trip to Lettre D'Amour, and they are looking like a great shop, except no other customers soon after opening at 11 am. They are part of a consortium, or something, so they may be okay as far as finding other work if it doesn't work out there. Anyway, I got the Tarte Exotique, which was great. It is pineapple and almond cream baked in the tart shell with a layer of milk chocolate mousse sandwiched between salt caramel ganache. On top is a compote of pineapple, mango, banana, and passion fruit such that you can "enjoy the feeling of the fruit flesh". I can't say I'm fond of all these ingredients (I don't really go for pineapple or banana in my cake and I'm not sure why mango and passion fruit are so popular), but it completely works. This was 550 yen. I better get back there before they close shop. It's on my list of places to visit the cafe.