Cake-off: Lenôtre's Feuille d'Automne Rouge over Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait

Sunday, as another cake-off, which was not my original plan (my original plan was that I would hit a couple exceptional shops, to finishing raising that category to 8 cakes each). However, the day before I saw that Pierre Hermé had their Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait in for the Christmas season, like other years (the connection is that it's robust enough that they can make them far ahead). It's complicated, but both it and Lenôtre's Feuille d'Automne Rouge had a mistaken 3rd round, where I accidently pitted them against something that had already had a third round. Officially, they are both one and one but each secretly has a win against a 1-win-of-3 shop, so the winner of this cake-off will get credit for 2 wins out of 3, and the loser has their previous match count, so they become 2 winds out of 4, so win-win, essentially, except only one can get a new 4th round whereas the other will probably sit next year out, since they have two losses.

The tart remains in good favor. Though the name indicates milk chocolate, the caramel and crunchy pits define it. However, I have to give the win to Feuille d'Automne Rouge. At first glance, it's a simple variation on their star cake (in Japan), but I'm coming to think it's a real upgrade, though one might not always want raspberry. Haven't seem they try any other variations, but I'll keep hoping. In any case, both shops win a chance for another sample, but that's going to probably wait until next year, as I'm busy, unless I get something the 31st. 

Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait over Pièce Montée's Mont-Blanc

Friday night, I went to Pièce Montée's Mont-Blanc for Saturday, once they confirmed that Saturday they wouldn't be selling it. They open late, so that's still within 24 hours of them putting it on display, which seems reasonable. I mostly carefully walked it back (they do not take it down, just limit its movement by a partition and icepack). My snack instead came from the Marusho, in the form of a Plecia Basque Cheesecake, which was definitely good, unlike my last coffee shop cheesecake.

Saturday, I woke much to early, so I same neighborhood course I mentioned previously, but found another little shop next to Shinanomachi selling little traditional cakes, so the map needed to be revised (the shop is Bunmeidou, and I got their Honey Castella Rolls, which was definitely good, as packaged cakes go).

That being the case, I decided that I should add the various Soga Gakkai buildings, the same as I would if they were religious buildings of other groups, even though this area is their central complex. The streets are public, so it's not really a campus or like a temple grounds, where many building might be assembled. I took a few pictures of obvious candidates for revising the map and then headed to Isetan, where I arrived just before opening and easily got my Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait for a cake-off between two zero-for-one cakes.

Unfortunately, I didn't move the mont-blanc from the chiller before serving (probably should have moved it to the regular part of refrigerator an hour before eating), so it was maybe too firm for the whipped cream to express itself. I just wasn't feeling the need for this to be on the great list, so Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait, which I still think deserves to be on the list easily won. The mont-blanc will get another chance this year, and I'll try to remember to be more careful about the temperature, as appropriate for a cake that depends on whipped cream.

When I was out again, confirmed more Soka Gakkai buildings, I stopped at their souvenir shop, Hakubun Eikōdō, and got a little Shinanomachi Agemochi (fried rice cake), which was good in the standard way.

Cake-off: En Vedette's Rocher over Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait

Did a cake-off today, even starting after noon, due to an appointment and a couple errands, though tomorrow I also have a morning appointment, so I'm not going to start that much earlier. I started, though, in terms of the neighborhood map, by getting something from Sakamotoya, which is a kasutera (an early Japanese cake) shop but I got something called Sugegasa, which is a wheat-based bean filled cake shaped like the traditional hat of that name. It was good, but I'm not that into an. If they had what I would consider a one-person size of kasutera, I would have gotten that, but the smallest was 650 yen size, which I'd give to 4 (not particularly greedy) people. I also found a patisserie called Emporter in Yotsuya 2 (not sure whether it's related to the Setagaya shop of that name), so I'm redoing one of the first loops on the neighborhood course to accommodate it. I had just told myself that next time I revised that loop, I was going to remove the overlap by using a 180 turn to the other side of the street, and at the same time I'm going to merge even one-point overlapping loops, though I'll wait until I get around to the clumps to worry about the other loops. For now, I have to redo the first clump, since merging loops effectively merged to clumps. 

A major errand later, I confirmed that Isetan had Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait and then went for a quick errand to Tokyu Hands, but stopped for a pastry at Fauchon in Takashimaya. It was excellent as Pain au Chocolat go, certainly high quality, but perhaps I should have taken something more original.

They still remembered me from last Tuesday and recognized that I had brought my own bag for cake, bigger this time, and then had the Rocher that I wanted, as well as their name-sake cake, which they had been sold out of Tuesday and I had wondered about. I took the train back, for speed and cake protection, and got the Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait. With the errands, it was a late lunch, and then the cakes. It had been a couple years for the tart, so I had no idea what to expect. Actually, it's caramel chocolate and is little crunchy chocolate balls for texture. It's unique and well made of lots of good stuck that goes well together, so I'm keeping it as great, but the Rocher had flavor and a great balance, so it gets the win. However, I don't have anything to match the Rocher up with, so probably the next cake-off will be a second round for the Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait, though I think that will have to be the 11th.

In the late afternoon, I had 2.5 hours to run (I would have had 3 hours, but I had to play "where is my F-ing key" for almost 30 minutes), so I first tried to do neighbor running course clumps and failed both. The first, I turned where I shouldn't have (following an old version briefly), but it the closure of a shop on one loop and the appearance of a chocolate shop on another, but opening onto the side street, meant I was going to have to revise loops away. Like in the Yotsuya case, I ended up merging three loops, which is going to seriously mess that up. With the severing of the link reversed the direction through Azabu, Hiroo and Roppongi Hills and the link between Ebisu-Nishi and Ebisu-Minami, as well as the detour to get to Jinnan, my map is a mess as far as the wider connections. At least failing there gave me enough time to get over the do the Akasaka--Azabudai--Roppongi--Toranomon loop counterclockwise, and count that and its clump as verified. Next new loop to try to confirm will be back to Aobadai, but I've got to deal with today's destroyed loops first.

Pierre Hermé: Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait

Had to work late and was still tired from yesterday's long run, so I gave up on doing a strenuous "training" run. Given the wind today, that was just as well, and the issue of being in danger of exceeding my running budget again this weekend, despite my body indicating that maybe I don't need to be in such a hurry to expand my distance was supported taking it a little easy. Instead, I apparently took it very easy, because my about 8 km was only at 9 km/h (though will some steepish slopes and one pedestrian bridge). I did errands: verified the nearest Nikunohanamasa did not have roasted unsalted peanuts (they've become an unreliable source, so I'm not too surprised), that I can get Bernard from Toshi Yoroizuka for my next great cake comparison, though I should cake to reserve a piece, since they tend to get cleaned out from 3 pm (same clerk as last time, so I confirm the unavailability of two other great cakes while I was there this time), and hit Lawson's 100 for groceries.

So the plan is no cake tomorrow and run to next near
est Nikunohanamasa looking for peanuts. I'll bank that cake for when I'm ready for the next cake off, some time next week (the other cake is a regular from Isetan, so I'm hoping I won't have to worry about getting that one).

Today's cake was from Pierre Hermé, which I decided I needed a new cake from as a "reward" from winning my first cake-off (so I'll also need an extra visit to Dalloyau for the second one): Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait (648 yen). This is just a tart, of course, one having a hard tart shell with caramel in the bottom (so you have to watch out for it being squeezed out when you cut into it), a main body of solid milk chocolate with some peanut pieces, little crunchy chocolate balls, and some dark chocolate sauce to stick the top lid of chocolate on and/or keep any loose balls from escaping. For a tart, it is a little complicated but still fairly straightforward. To me, it's a great example of chocolate tart, so I hope I get a chance to compare it to other great chocolate or caramel tarts.