L'Abricotier, Saint Honoré

Friday, I did an indoor workout. Before hand, I went to Isetan to get their Koonie Chocolat Pecan, since they won a cake-off but don't have any new cakes (in Japan). Koonie are their cookie-brownie hybrid, covered in chocolate, and there are several flavors. I approve of the combination, and can call this an excellent baked good. Hard to tell the size from the photo, but reported weight Koonies on the French website is 20 g each.

Saturday, as planned, I rode to L'Abricotier to get a new cake, also for a cake-off win. This makes the 19th cake type from them for me. This time I got Saint Honoré, which I was surprised to find as new to be from there. It's very traditional in construction. As Japanese choux pastry goes, this was fairly robust, which I appreciate. The caramel is bitter caramel, which I did not appreciate but can respect, so I don't have probably saying that this was excellent.

Other errands appeared that I was not expected, so I was actually pretty late getting back, but went out again at 4 pm to confirm neighborhood course loops in the south Jinguumae area. This time I could confirm my Jinguumae 5&6 and Jinguumae--Shibuya loops counterclockwise, and take care of clockwise for the Jinguumae 5 and Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama south loops. Along the way, on the first of these four, I finally sampled Coco-Agepan, which is not open in the afternoon, though you'll still see the truck it's run out of parked in the same spot. Agepan means fried bread, and is a staple sweet to an extent. They fry it after you order it, but it doesn't take long. It's basically like a long yeast donut. I choose the Cinnamon Agepan rather than the Coco one (which I assume is chocolate, not coconut), one of several flavors. It was good and reasonable snack for runners, though photographing it in the rain was awkward.

Bien-être: Onctueuse

Wednesday, I finally managed cake.

Monday, my goal was a pastry, so I went to The Ritz-Carlton Café and Deli (which is at Tokyo Midtown, in Akasaka) and got what I thought had a (small) chance to be a pastry, Pain au Crème (might have been the Latin script name), though this was definitely sweet bread. The cream was custard cream and it was definitely good sweet bread. There was a croissant there, so I can go back next week for a pastry, but that's about it among their selection, so it seemed worth trying this pastry-like bread.

For Tuesday, I made my first attempt on Bien-être. I had been successful last Tuesday, but this time there were only three cakes that I've already had, so I went to Viron in Shibuya, for Pain au Chocolat. This thing is huge, and fluffy, which I'm not so into. The chocolate is proportionate to the amount of actual pastry, rather than the size, which is probably just as well. It was definitely at least good and in the end (after a day to think about it), it seemed too perfectly formed not to rate it excellent, even if it wasn't actually to what I imagine would best suit me.

Wednesday, my second attempt at Bien-être was successful. There was another new choice, so I can try again next week, afterwhich September will hopefully bring more new cakes, though I've also seen a couple tarts this month that I've never had. I choose Onctueuse ("creamy"). This was a chocolate mousse cake with a pistachio center, which is pretty standard around here and also something I don't have high expectations for: too much chocolate, maybe. Pistachio cream was a reasonable choice (vanilla seems hopeless), though it can't do too much against chocolate. Fortunately, it was definitely good chocolate and definitely good cake. I wonder if it's more the chocolate coating that keeps me from liking these more, since JPH's layered mousse cakes are great without it, but they usually have a lot else going on in the other layers, so that might not be it. So this wasn't a breakthrough for this style of cake, but what was interesting was the raspberry: the forkful with the whole fresh strawberry was awesome. If this cake had enough raspberries for every bite or at least every other bite, it would probably be at least excellent. I've never seen a cake like that, but now I'm going to be looking for it everywhere. If I ever get bold enough, I may ask, "Can I get that with extra raspberries? I'll pay extra."