Had a long run today, and there are many mistakes to report, so I'll get to it.
First step was to get to Aigre-Douce to look for previously blogged great cakes. Not surprisingly, now is not the season for fresh raspberries, which was the cake I was looking for, although they did have the salt caramel tart that I liked. My route deviated from the plan on the initial roads and then I ran into trouble where Meiji Avenue goes under Mejiro Avenue, as I did not find the stairs that Google says are there (actually, I did not remember where Google said there were stairs, but the only ones I saw to use were on the wrong side, so I should have stayed over there, which was in the shade). I ended up with an extra 400 m. Problem is, to stay on budget, besides not adding distance, I needed to keep the outbound to 10 km/h and this about 6 km stretch ended up 11 km/h, which I did not even realize, so double penalty there.
At Aigre-Douce, to power my next stretch, I got their bostock for 280 yen. This was definitely good. It seemed lemony, though maybe I was misinterpreting almond liquor or something.
Next 14 km was to Yu Sasage, and this time I stuck to the plan. I was only slightly slower then the first strech, but this brought me within the 10 km/h range. This time, neither of their great cakes that I've had were available, probably because it is the wrong season. I should have bought another snack there so I wouldn't be so hungry that I ate my cake at the actual target for cake. Got a photo, though.
First time to La Candeur, so got a little confused at the first turn (plus, I couldn't remember the details of the plan, so I took the main road south after rejoining Route 20). Seems like a nice shop, and very new looking. The selection was nice. I went with a traditional cake, Marjolaine, which was perhaps a mistake, but I'm too much a slave to the classics.
As I said above, I almost immediately gave into temptation and ate it at a park. This was the wrong temperature for this cake, which, based on the fact that two of the filling layers are whipped cream, should be eaten about 10 degC (which was the ambient temperature, but it would have taken a while to reach that, and I've already said that I was not patient). Anyway, I've made this cake myself, and this seemed to be exactly by the book and taste about how I would expect. So it was definitely good, although, as chocolate, chocolate whipped cream never works well for me, so again, this was perhaps a bad choice. It did make me think about making this cake again, but I don't really need this shop's (but not because it's worse), so that's not an indicate that it's excellent. Too many Tokyo shops to give them a second chance, unless they visit Isetan, in which case I should.
Back (about 14 km) was supposed to be 9 km/h, to stay in budget, and I was definitely slower, but was still in the 10 km/h range, which was a bigger deal the being fast and long on the first stage, so I'm over my running budget by 3% now, though since I only get to expand it every couple weeks, that's not unreasonable (my expansion pace is 10%/week, but only 10% of what I actually ran for one week starting two weeks previously, so it's easily interrupted). My raw distance the last 7 days was 90.8 km and the 12 km/h equivalent (what I actually use in my budget) was 80.7 km. I won't have a lot of running budget for the next block of weekdays, since the budget won't get upped until next Sunday and this weekend is taking up the majority of the current budget. Still, I can plan out a couple training runs, one second visit, and one new shop for Tuesday through Friday so I'm fine. Might run early Saturday, before my first appointment, but not enough for my budget to matter, since I'm busy that weekend. Tomorrow I'll rest, but get some bread.
With that all planned out, now I need to figure out where I need to go to research great cakes for comparison in two weeks so I can start figuring that week's schedule.
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As a café date, Bien-être is the best that we've never visited. The excuse to go to that area was to see cherry blossoms (which aren't quite at full bloom, but close) at Yoyogi Park. It was reasonably crowded, but manageable. We didn't try to picnic or anything, but walked around and too some pictures.
At Bien-être, I went for the Chiboust Chocolat Framboise, since I've had good luck with their chiboust and this seemed unusual enough that I didn't want to miss it. The other choice was a standard, Chantilly Fraise. First, the chiboust is quite rich, even heavy, which is counter intuitive for chiboust, but it's excellent. The raspberry is relative subtle, but definitely there, which is my preference. Chantilly Fraise is not so much my thing, but I definitely thought that the sponge was more flavorful than average and resisted moisture and the whipped cream was nicely fresh, so I can say that this is excellent. One of the best thing about this shop is that they change their line-up fairly regularly for a shop their size. Also not that this place is so popular that they were only barely squeeze us in.
