Ryoura, Marquise

Saturday, as well as the Mont-Blanc for the cake-off, I bought a second cake at Ryoura for efficiency/social distancing's sake, since I expected getting more cakes from Ryoura, a quite exceptional shop, would be the next thing, since I was about to catch up on exceptional shops. However, the demotion of the Mont-Blanc actually meant that Ryoura was at the bottom of the quite exceptional group and likely to get replaced by one of two up-and-comers, so the 19th new cake is maybe several years ahead of its time, or at least I'll have to consider carefully after the next cake-off win whether the reward has already been given, but that's not likely to be until next year until the caramel salt tart finally returns: I'll have to watch for hints online, since I don't expect to get out that way.

Last time I went with a variation of a cake I've had before, so this time I choose something I definitely not had, Marquise, which is white peach flavored and, I was warned, has alcohol. The flavor was nice, but as the shape suggests, this requires a good amount of gelatin to maintain form and the resulting texture didn't agree with me, though I've had similar cakes that were excellent. In this cake, good as the best I'm willing to say, but I can certainly imagine someone else appreciating this cake more, as it is well made.

Yatsudoki, Chocolate Pompette

As a new shop to visit while I wait for the month to run out, I visited a shop of the dessert chain Yatsudoki, which has cakes, among other things. For logistical reasons, I ended up visiting the Shinjuku branch rather than the Jinguumae branch on the neighborhood course, though I had gone by that one on the way out. I choose the dense chocolate layer cake, which is not on the website. It's layers of almond biscuit and ganache, I assume, with some, probably inconsequential, amount of alcohol, thus the pompette. It's a relatively new chain (or a new brand of a relatively new chain), compared to most of the chain stores of the same level. Anyway, it's still a low level, but it was still good cake, which is a huge improvement over some of cheap chain shops that are hanging on, it least based on my small sample of each. Next, on to better things, though (if I could just finish work on time or if shops could stay open later without spreading illness).

FOBS: Mont-blanc

Finally visited another new shop from among those Sweet Sonobe has mentioned, (Patisserie) FOBS, which stands for "Farine Oeuf Beurre Sucre". It's over 8 km away and closes at 8 pm, so there was not a huge selection when I got there. I think the other cake was their Fraise, which also looked pretty standard, like what I chose, the Mont-blanc for 540 yen. 

This particular mont-blanc is about equal parts French chestnut paste, unsweetened cream, and meringue. The meringue had more than just sugar and eggs, but did not seem heavy on almond powder. Can you make meringue with flour, or does that destroy it? Also, alcohol somewhere, supposedly, and inside was a little cassis. It was definitely quite good (I should say that I like a mild chestnut) but it was not so distinctive., which I don't mind, but affects my rating.

I was a little slower today than yesterday, on purpose: 10 km/h going out and 9 km/h coming back. I mean to mention yesterday that I did shopping Monday, which gave me more than 6 km, so my Sunday to Tuesday 3-day runs broke 70 km. The next couple days I have more local shops in mind. The weekend runs too are more modest, maybe 25 km per day. The weather is not looking great, so it's just as well. I should have the budget to hit more new shops on the weekday, and I extend farther on the list of what's accessible. (I've got one 15 km each-way shop that's open until 9 pm. I'm saving that for last, but there are only a few others on the list right now.) 

Au Bon Vieux Temps, Zephyr

Cycled to Au Bon Vieux Temps for cake again. This time I got Zephyr, which was 702 yen. The top is chocolate cream with alcohol, which both seem to be a specialties of theirs. The bottom is a steamed/baked mascarpone cheese and brown sugar (had to look up "vergeoise" from the Japanese phonetic French) cheesecake, which was almost nutty in texture. This cake is excellent, so I chose well again. That chocolate stick should be on top, though.

Being greedy, I continued on to Limevert, because I hadn't forgotten that they had a bostock (for 380 yen), but it wasn't really the type I like. I like double-baked, somewhat thick, but this was thin and rum-soaked with lots of sliced almonds (a large amount of almonds slid off even before I got it; it's not very stable ). It was still good.

Didn't do a good job of staying on the best path, so it ended up being 34 km of cycling, which is a couple more than I planned. My leg seems okay, but now my arm isn't too happy, so I may need to limit that.

I should mention sometime that I've had the Venezuelan Noir chocolate from Henri le Roux (I've given up on photographing them), and it was excellent, like their other chocolates. Now I want to get to Tokyo midtown to try the their new Kouign Amann flavor, lime.