Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil over Au Bon Vieux Temps' Tentation Chocolat

Friday, I did the pasty thing. Still cold a little rainy, but it stopped by the time I got to Sora. I made all the lights but the last (where I took the pedestrian overpass) and managed +10 km/h for a little under 3 km. I tried the Pain au Chocolat and it was okay as a snack but not impressive as a pastry, for which the few layers were either too thick or under-baked, I thought. Of course, it would have been better warm, but I'm criticizing the basic structure.

I went on to practice in order to reinforce the correct path (so I don't have to stop and confirm it next time) on the Minami-Aoyama--Nishi-Azabu Loop and then that the café/boulangerie across from Gaien is still closed, so I don't have to alter my Minami-Aoyama north loop to include it.

Saturday morning was the run for the cake-off. I had a cancellation of my 10 am appointment and could go to Au Bon Vieux Temps early and get the Tentation Chocolat before it sold out this time. I note that the all-male staff (I think) aren't as friendly as some places, though that could just be to me (though it could be more about being sleepy part-times). I've had experience with too friendly. Anyway, after confirm the no changes in line-ups and two relatively close stores, I took the train back to Shinjuku and, after waiting in line for a while at Jean-Paul Hévin (they are really busy with chocolate sales, for Valentine's Day, though they've closed the chocolate bar and use that for the shorter line for cake, as well as higher-end chocolate sets), I got the Guayaquil.

Eating these, I was thinking that I must be comparing two first-round cake-off winners, because these were so obviously great, but actually this was a runner's up second round. I can't fault either. The Tentation Chocolat is almost entirely an extremely dense chocolate cream (or maybe it's a creamy ganache). The Guayaquil is a straight chocolate sponge (I suppose) layer cake, with just a little ganache and chocolate on top. In the end, I feel that the Guayaquil wins for making a traditional chocolate cake so good.

Cake-off: Tentation Chocolat vs. Carrément Chocolat

Not a bad cake running day, but still mixed results. First, a little slow. This was deliberate, but I felt afterward that it would have been hard to do otherwise. First I went to Cuoca, where they did not have scrapers for making macarons (I could have checked their website first, but it's somewhat on the way, so why spoil the surprise.) That was about 11 km @ 11.0+ km/h, which was my goal, rather than kill myself doing 12 km/h, which is not something I need on long runs, at least yet. Also, though not painfully sore today, yesterday's speed training was not something I would recommend before the main long run of the week (I was busy this weekend, at least Friday and Saturday, so I ran when the opportunity was there).  From, I went to Au Bon Vieux Temps for the Tentation Chocolat, which is my earliest great cake. I had a back-up plan in case this turned out to be out of season or just something they didn't make anymore, but the staff helped me find it when I asked (I often can't see what's in front of me). Ran into a long train crossing signal (too long not to indicate a problem, so after several minutes, I left the waiting crowds of people and vehicles and ran parallel to the line, since I wanted the shortest route in terms of time, rather than distance) and it resolved itself within another several minutes (I knew I'd eventually at least get to where there was a bridge or tunnel anyway, but the train did finally go past). This was my first trial run of seeing whether I could run a cake like this so far (12+ km), and I wouldn't try it in summer (I might have to use the trains for cake transport then, but then I also don't want to be running super long distances in the worst heat anyway; been there, done that). Thus, I have an excuse to be down around 10 km/h.

Cake survived, though the vibration moved to across it's cardboard base (taped down) to the edge of the box, but it's a pretty solid cake, so no problem, which is good, because then I accidentally flipped it over on its side trying to get it out and had to put it back together. I don't know why they didn't add partitions to keep it in place, which is the normal thing and what they did from the last cake I got there. I might have to specify that it's going to have a rough return home (versus me just eating it in the park).

Next, I ran over to Isetan to get the Carrément Chocolate from Pierre Hermé at Isetan, which was the next great chocolate cake that I blogged. This was also at 10 km/h, though that dropped down to 9 km/h coming back, which I can at least partially blame on more crowded conditions (though right around Isetan, the road is closed to traffic for Sunday during the day.

This was my first try at comparison. I choose two similar cakes, although the Tentation is a mousse cake (a very solid mousse), whereas the Carrément Chocolat is not, though still very moist. Both were great chocolate cakes, which I'm happy about (I imagine that I'm going to find some cakes that I rated as great once that I'm not going to be less impressed with the second time), but I'm disappointed that they were not more different. In the end (and really at the last bites), I decided to go with Carrément Chocolat, as I like the crunch from the bottom layer (though I don't need the gold leaf on top, at all).

Cycling from Au Bon Vieux Temp (Tentation Chocolat) to Faraoula (Angers st Laud)

To rest my feet, I went out with my granny bike to what I think of as the Jiyugaoka (自由が丘) area, which includes within a couple stations. As usual, having okay cake yesterday made me crave really good cake, so I went where I knew I could find some.

I started with my far point, which was Au Bon Vieux Temps (オー ボン ヴュー タン), which recently moved around the block to the wide street from the narrow shopping street that runs to the station (Oyamadai Station; 尾山台駅), though it's actually on the Todoroki side, not Oyamadai. No picture because I demonstrated to myself again that you can't carry cake on a bicycle (but I can run several kilometers carrying it), at least not operating it (the bicycle) in a legal manner. My cake was decapitated, but still quite edible, so no problem. The cake was a Tentation Chocolat ("chocolate temptation"; タンタシオンショコラ) for 650 yen. It had a not quite solid block dense chocolate tart-like base of about 1 cm (3 to 4 cm diameter), a middle slightly thicker layer of still fairly dense chocolate mousse, and was topped by chocolate whipped cream. Great cake (which is why I go to this shop). I need to go to the cafe/restaurant and have one of their frozen desserts, which are slightly more expensive.

Next, I searched for one new place among the many cake places listed on the local area website but that I had never heard anything particular about. m.koide, who I've seen open and with customers, was unexpectedly closed with a "help wanted" sign on the door. I had already gone past where Patisserie R Okasawa used to be and seen that it had moved, but since I knew that I also had also passed the new shop somewhere though was not sure where, I figured that it was better to look online later (which I've done) rather than go back and search. Patisserie Rikyuu (where I might have gotten cheesecake as maybe the only thing of much interest listed on the menu out front) had a tiny note on the door saying "back at 1:40". Merger-sasa (?) was no where to be found, although I did find an empty storefront with an awning at about the right place that would fit for a patisserie. So I ended up visiting Patisserie de la Loire, which is a tiny Mom (and I think I heard Pop in the back) place that admitted that they didn't have any specialty, which pretty much sums them up. They looked completely basic, but a little sachertorte for 300 yen tasted about like what one would expect, in a good enough way. If you need to buy a bunch of little cakes for students/children/underlings, they have a few basic varieties, and the lady was very nice. No reason for me to go back again.

Okay, back to the greats that bring me to Jiyugaoka: Tarte Tentation (タルト タンタシオン) at Patisserie Paris S'éveille (パティスリー・パリセヴェイユ). This was also chocolate, but a little wider and only about 5 mm thick of chocolate flavored with citrus (with a few orange pieces on top). It was high quality, but the orange (or whatever specifically it was) overpowered the chocolate, so it did not work for me, although not bad tasting. Still, I'll be back until I've sampled everything and then go through the one's I think that I like again (the main purpose of this blog is as a record, since I can't remember all these cakes and shops in detail).

Finally, a shop that just recently moved and came to my attention, Fraoula, hidden between stations at the southwest corner of Yoyogi Park, sold me one of the below (518 yen): Angers st Laud (アンジェ サン ロー)、which is pistachio flavored with vanilla Bavarois (Bavarian cream), but notice that there are little biscuits (English spelling is such a pain, I write as I try to figure out French from phonetic Japanese every day for this blog, although in this case, I didn't need to) in there, as well as almonds: great cake (or whatever you want to call it). Not disappointed with this place yet, so I expect more last stops there (if I can get there by when they close, 5 pm!).