Showing posts with label Xabina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Xabina. Show all posts

Monday, July 17, 2017

(Sat.) Bubó Barcelona café: Pear Caramel and Xabina

Was busy an also generally very hot for running (sunny with a high of 35 degC), especially with cake, [for this entire three-day weekend]. Fortunately, it's not too far from Omotesando Station to Bubó Barcelona, especially if you stop at Crayonhouse for a vegetable-intensive (I skipped the chicken) organic buffet. Bubó Barcelona is very modern, though the second-floor space leaves the ceiling and walls bare rather than covering the pipes and things. We went fairly early, I suppose, between noon and 1 pm, and were the only customers when we arrived (in the café/salon; a guy was taking phone photos of the cakes on the first floor). Only a few people came in upstairs while we were there, so I'm a little worried about their longevity. The bakery café nearby was packed on both floors, with people waiting. There were a lot of foreigners specifically coming there (it's a back street with not a lot of things, so most people we saw were going there, but someone got the $200 haircut next door).  They must have a good promotion scheme going on somewhere.

Though at the café, the cake comes with extra bits, as shown (and cost 200 yen extra), but it's still the same as the take-out cake, so it's reasonable to dual list this as cake and café. I only had about half of each, but the Xabina was about the same as before. I was less excited about the Xabina the second time and the chocolate seemed a little watery to me initially, but I got past that and will stick to my original excellent rating. The Pear Caramel was also excellent. Actually, walnuts are more very prominent in this and it's not actually very caramel flavored, but rather more syrupy, which probably depends on how long/hot you coot the sugar for the caramel.

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Bubó Barcelona: Xabina

After a brisk walk to Isetan to find that they did not have the cake I needed for my next cake-off, I headed home and then set off for Bubó Barcelona. This time, I did not get lost and it did take only half the time. Total, it was just under 6 km, done at 9 km/h.

The shop and street were empty of customers when I went, though someone came in after me. They had 10 types of cakes, so I won't run out of things there soon. I got the Xabina, which is basically a familiar type: mousse chocolate cake with a little Bavarian cream inside (not sure why). In this case, though, there are spices and olive oil involved, and you can definitely taste that there is something different going one. These types of cakes pretty much depend on the quality of the chocolate and this was definitely not bad, and interesting, so I'll say it's excellent and move this shop up to the Quite Excellent category, which means I'll have to make frequent visits there, at least until they disappoint me.

Worth mentioning, before I ate my cake, I had to go out for regular groceries, and I noticed an animal running along the fence between housing units. It was cat-sized, but something wasn't quite right. It came back and couple times, popping and running along the top of the fence (the wire fence: there isn't flat top), and I saw it had a triangular face. Apparently, we have civets (https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/whats-that-smell-could-a-civet-be-nearby). I was told Tokyo has feral "Tree civets", or maybe it was "Forest civets", but I'm not sure that's a real thing and the Japan Today article was less certain about whether they are invasive.