Albida Lounge, Chocolat Fondant

Tried a new shop as my second/last weekday cake. This was a spontaneous decision, though I had noticed the shop before, but the next neighbor running course shops was planned to be Citron, on the Minami-Aoyama loop in the Gaien clump, both of which I'm up to date on. But I was doing the Minami-Aoyama--Nishi-Azabu on the other side of the main north-south road and noticed that the hotel lounge/cafe had cake, so I went in there, and sure enough they have a few types and if was available for take-out (at least during corona times). This is Albida Lounge, for the record. I went with the Chocolat Fondant, which came with whipped cream, though I didn't take good care of it. The cake isn't cheap but pretty large as fondant go and quite a fine texture, so I think it's reasonable to call it excellent. That's not enough to take me back immediately, but its enough for it to keep its place in the fine shops long enough to get a second try when I get around to getting second cakes from similar shops.

As a result, I had to revised the loop. Actually, this shop is on an outside corner with sites on the two interior sides, so I had to make the block its own loop, but the clump stays together. I didn't feel a need to re-practice the whole think, just this slit loop.

Actually, I had one more weekday thing, but it counts of a pastry. Friday at lunch time, I got an Apple Pie from Yatsudoki in Shinjuku 1, on the grounds that it looks like a Chauson aux Pommes. It really is more of an apple pie. On the plus side, the inside is well cooked. On the minus side, though it might because I heated it up (3 minutes at 120 degC), but it seemed overly greasy. It was good, but it doesn't give me an incentive to explore there further.

Michalak, Paris-Brest

Thursday's vain attempt to get the 7th year anniversary cake item from Sadaharu Aoki at Shibuya ended with me betting the Dutch Crumble from the Granny Smith counter. It was okay, but I can't say that cold cooked apples with soggy crust is good, though I'm not sure what was different from good pie. There would be more cinnamon and sugar in the recipe I know, and maybe I should always heat it up. Certainly. vanilla ice cream would be traditional, but I was never a big fan of adding to the sogginess. I can image trying the cheesecake or maybe even the French apple pie version, but I'd rather have cake.

Friday, I had other things to do, but it took me to Isetan, where I decided to make up from only one (normal fresh) cake during the work week to get cake from Michalak. Since I was not impressed by the previous tart, though I see how my choice was not likely to suit me, I went for a different type of cake, their Paris-Brest. This is a sugar bomb of praliné creme, which is just what I like. It was great. I will stop complaining about things being called Paris-Brest even though they are not wheel-shaped. Since other great Paris-Brest I've had was a slice from a large cake, scale clearly matters for the texture and balance. It should be possible to get a delicious balance of praliné cream and choux pastry regardless of shape, but I won't begrudge the maker their choice of how to achieve that.

Zephyr [Isetan]

Went to Isetan and took some notes on other cakes I've had (need to update P. Cover now), and got not cake, in this case, a little pie-let from the Zephyr counter of Isetan, which is a brand of Tokyo Fugetsudo, a huge company. This is made from Janathon apples (from Aoyama), but underneath is some kind of sweet (?) potato, I think. Anyway, definitely good apple pie for when I'm not in the mood for cake and only 480 yen.

Tomorrow I'll run, so I avoided it tonight. I may have to wait for the rain to end, so I'm not planning to get up early, and since I won't go that far, (just 25 to 30 km), that should be fine even for getting cake.