Bigarreaux: Marius

Took a half-day off and walked and ran to Bigarreaux. As usual, started off too fast and averaged 6.2 km/h in the walking part. 3 km in, I "ran" 2 km at 7 km/h. Now it's very natural for me to run the same speed I walk. No problem yet. Not sure whether I'll raise my distance before replacing my walking with running, but I'm ready to introduce 8 km/h running. Coming back I just walked, averaging 5.8 km/h, so I'm just going to pretend all the walking was at 6 km/h, in terms of my budget, which I haven't used up but will be busy the next couple days (but will definitely get some cake in anyway).



At Bigarreaux, where I ate in; I had Marius for 540 yen. It tasted how I should have expected, so I should learn to analyze and choose more wisely, since it was not my thing. It's three layers of biscuit (probably almond), too layers of cassis (blackcurrant) buttercream, and one layer of apricot gel. It was good and well constructed, but I'm not that into that fruity a cake. Actually, the apricot was too weak for me (I didn't read the card that far when I was there and wasn't sure it wasn't mango): two layers apricot, one layer cassis might have been better for me.

That's 0 for 3 in my attempt to introduce near-great shops into my evaluations. Of course, I'm working my way up the from the bottom by virtue of looking at the ones I have the fewest cakes from, since they are all earlier drop-outs from my original potentially great list. Eventually, I'll have to weaken the criterion, but I'll try a few more first.

L'Abricotier: L'Abricotier

No running, in preparation for tomorrow's run (definitely no running Monday either, unless tomorrow's is rained out).  I was reminded that riding a bicycle in Tokyo is not particularly pleasant (too many people and cars), but I was doing some shopping that required carrying things and I preferred exercise.

The signature cake of L'Abricotier (the apricot) is L'Abricotier, which is 460. The apricot comes in as gelatin, which is fine, whereas most of the cake is almond mousse (thus the almond on top). There is a small cake disk toward the bottom which I think uses hazelnuts, and a crunch bottom that is almond. It's possible that I have the nuts reversed on the last, as the nut pieces were fairly big and did not look like they were cut from either, although I suppose it's hard to tell. Mini macarons were appreciated, as they almost always are. I'm going to say that this was great (even if I don't expect other cakes from here to live up to this level).

La Vie Douce: Yuzu Chiboust

Got to do some cleaning and never get anything done when I run, so I didn't. Did an indoor workout, though (just sets of simple lifts and push ups).

Ahead of time, I got Yuzu Chiboust for 475 yen from La Vie Douce, which was one of the local patisseries that I said I should visit. My general opinion of them is that they are so-so, and the last time that I had one of the couple cakes that I thought was exceptional (La Vie Bacchus), I was not into it. It's it's a pretty serious looking place, with several people in the kitchen working, and it's only the Tokyo branch (the main shop is in Yokohama). This was great cake. The top is chocolate Chiboust, which is great, and the bottom is a fairly firm yuzu mousse around a little apricot jelly and enough biscuit underneath to hold it together. This was actually recommended on their webpage, so they no it's special, compared to their usual stuff, but I should still go back to look for more special things. Unfortunately, they close at 7 pm (and Mondays), so they are not as convenient as my usual haunts.