Café Mikuni's, Savarin Fleur d'Orange

The other Café Mikuni's cake from last weekend that I shared was a Savarin Fleur d'Orange. I assume the bottom was somehow the savarin, as it was rather mellow but not obviously alcoholic or orange. Actually, the whole thing is not a strong orange, or at least a strongly citreous orange, maybe a blood orange? Anyway, it was also definitely good, which is a pretty good rating for a glass dessert presented as cake.  

Café Mikuni's, Tarte Tatin

Finally caught up to last weekend, when I was busy, so not as much to say. However, it did involve cake for two, so in some ways there is more. First, at least in photographing, was a Tarte Tatin from Café  Mikuni's, which is on the list of quite fine shops and I only had three cakes from there, so a deliberate choice. We weren't very early getting there, so the selection wasn't very brought and the person ahead of us took the last two of what would have been our first choices, but I'm still looking for a Tart Tatin as good as the one I had at Viron's restaurant, which is probably an unreasonable comparison. This one was definitely good and had a crust with buckwheat, which is unusual but didn't make eating it that strange. Even though this shop probably won't make the cut to stay on this overfull list, it's still a fine shop attached to my favorite fancy French restaurant (Viron being my favorite, but casual). 

Café Mikuni's: Gateau Chocolat

Managed to get to Café Mikuni's (カフェミクニズ) before they closed. All the recommended (おすすめ) cakes were gone, but they had Gateau Chocolat （ガトー・ショコラ; 650 yen), which the card said was a specialty, so I went with that. It is a very dense, firm mousse with icing. It uses the good stuff, Valrhona chocolate, and tastes like it. Just chocolate mousse is pretty plain in general but this passes the "excellent" test of being something that I would like to have again or would consider worth learning to make. That's only the second cake from there, so among the shops I'm currently calling "excellent", it is a top priory, but I think it's not such a priority that I need to go again tomorrow. Instead, I'll wait until they reopen after the holidays starting this Friday, which will be in February.

Besides to and back Mikuni's, running was just down to the Meiji Ginju Gaien course and one lap at 11 km/h. Actually, going home was closer to that than 10 km/h, so I'm swelling my high-speed part. On the other hand, the Mikini's part was half and half 8 and 9 km/h (due to having to run through a low point in Wakaba by the shortest route; it might be faster to take Shinjuku Avenue or otherwise avoid the low spot). No trouble from last Sunday's long run. However, with the holidays, I'm pretty busy with non-running things, so I'm not sure how much running I'll get in until the new year. I'll look forward to planning longer runs and keep building. I need basically marathon distance to get to and do the Shibamata History and Culture Course, so that's the immediate goal, besides visiting more-distant cake shops, but I'm not hurting for much closer ones that I haven't visited yet.

Café Mikuni's: Mont-blanc

Finally got over to Café Mikuni's (カフェ・ミクニズ） for the first time. They open at 11:30, but around 11:50, they were full or almost full (seats 18) and the Chiboust Poire was sold-out, so I went with another recommended (according to a label on the card) cake, Mont-blanc (モンブラン, 500 yen), which shows how far I've warmed up to mont-blanc. It was definitely good, and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was excellent. It was fairly convention, in that it had a small meringue core, with cream around that and then a nicely smooth (Tokyo-produced Japanese) chestnut paste outisde. It may just be that I like mont-blanc in general now and this one was acceptable, but I'd like to go back sooner than later. Actually, it has to very soon, because they'll close (aside from 3 days of distributing ordered Christmas cakes), from Dec. 23 to Jan 31. Not sure if they'll have anything just before closing, when I can get there easily, but I'll try (with a couple back-ups in mind). I've got a couple days yet.

For running, I took my cake back home and then immediately went out for some grocery errands. Total run was 9 km, with two-thirds of that at 9 km/h and the rest at 10 km/h. My plan is to try an LSR (long slow run) tomorrow, not so much to build up my endurance but just because my goal isn't close. It's fortunate that most of the best cake shops are within easy reach, but eventually, I'll going to need to get further out to revisit others and hit ones I've heard of but haven't visited yet.