Wittamer, Thé et Raisin

Had some coupons for the food sections of Odakyu. The cake selection is pretty weak, but I never willowed the "fine" list of shops that seem to be just average, so now I'm after getting second cakes from all, which should take a few years. The first of two counters (and coupons), was Wittamer, which is a Belgian brand, apparently. It's pretty widespread, though this was also probably where I got my first cake from them. This time I steered clear of the obvious choices and when with Thé et Raisin, maybe because I previous takeout cake was a basic chocolate cake. As the name suggests, this is tea (Earl Grey) and grape (though it actually is raisin, the dried form), with some rum. It was a well-made cake with no out of place flavors. Good but bland in a competent way. Certainly, being a safe place to get consistent cakes had it's merits, but I don't expect I'll need to visit again.

The above was the cake from Monday night. Full disclosure, I had some non-patisserie cakes of high quality Saturday afternoon as a part of an afternoon tea set. 

I think the ones with berry halves are actually pear, whereas the little one's above are chestnut madeleines, with the larger ones to the left behind the glass desserts being sweet potato mont-blancs. The middle layers was savories and the bottom was mainly tiny scones. This was also at Odakyu, in that it was their 20th floor lounge in the Southern Tower of the Century Hotel at Shinjuku.

Wittamer: Chocolat Noisette

Had some business around Shinjuku Stn. (besides confirming the cake names for Bigarreaux from Sunday night), so I got cake from another "neighborhood" cake shop that I haven't posted from before, Wittamer at Shinjuku Takashimaya. Of course, Wittamer is a pretty standard department store brand, but they have a reasonable line up. I went with the Chocolat Noisette (chocolate and hazelnut), which seemed safe. The cake is good and definitely as avertized as far as flavor. The cross-section is pretty ugly, though, and I'm not that thrilled by the texture, as it was softer cake than I like (I like mousse or a drier biscuit, whereas this was mostly sponge cake, maybe). Still, not a bad choice if you're at Takashimaya.

I ran with the goal of Lawson 100, following neighborhood routes around south Yotsuya. Total, it was 27 minutes, though I wannted 30 minutes. Still, it was fine and I can increase the length tomorrow and run in the opposite direction, at least on the southwest Yotsuya part, and meet up where I finished today. As my running increases, I can get back to more distant neighborhood courses. Also, I still need to update the one today by Akasaka Palace, where they finished the construction around the park (now, there's construction around the north just north of Akasaka Palace, but that doesn't block my route).