Atsushi Hatae, Griotte Pistache

Last Sunday, which was my most recent cake, from a relatively new place, Atsushi Hatae in Sarugaku-chou. Since the first two were excellent, I decided to take a chance on something a little different from what I might usually choose or the several nutty or chocolaty cakes and get the Griotte Pistache, which of course has nuts but pistachios are the fruity nuts and I've not particularly appreciated cherry cakes, but this one looked like a good bet as far as having a lot of structural aspects in its favor. Half the inside is actually white semi-solid, which I'm guessing was mascarpone cheese, just because it shows up in cakes a lot and has no particular taste of its own. It was choice dilute the pistachio and cherry. In general, I want a strong taste, but I can see where that might not be the correct choice and here I respect the balance struck and say that this bet paid off, as it was excellent, so it's going to stay pretty safely among the quite fine shops, regardless of how the fourth cake is, but hopefully that will be great. Many other shops to visit, so I might not rush it.  

Viron, Foret-noire

Thursday was a public holiday, so I planned visits to two quite fine shops. On the way, though, I stopped at Viron in case they had new cakes, having in mind that St. Valentines Day might bring something new to the slowly varying lineup, which it did. I decided after some hesitation to go ahead and get both cakes from Viron, leaving the quite fine shops for another day, even though one cake might drop Viron low enough in ranking that I wouldn't necessary need another. I have no regrets. The first cake (choosing and eating) was Foret-noire (as written on the card), which is chocolate and cherry mousse and some other mousse that I'm not sure about, maybe custard and chocolate. Anyway, the cake is quite creamy yet fairly stable for mousse. Overly, it gets a nice balance between chocolate and cherry that works better than another other such cake I've had (noting that I'm not big on cherry and chocolate). I won't hesitate to say that it was excellent. 

Paris S'éveille, Tarte Vert Griotte

When I went last to Paris S'éveille, which was really long run for me in my current condition, though I'm working on that daily, they had a new cake. I almost didn't notice, but it shared features with their previous new cake, but that one was excellent, so that aspect is no problems. Fortunately, I noticed before paying and they let me add to my order (versus needing to go back outside to get in line again). It was Tarte Vert Giotte, whereas the previous tart had mango as the fruit, but both were green tea, which doesn't obviously go with either. It's not just cherries, but big dark, American-type cherries, like in a pie. My opinion of these is theoretically low, but the actuality was definitely excellent because rather than despite them, so I won't avoid them. I don't absolutely have to have this cake again, but I hope they keep whoever is designing these seasonal cakes, as I really appreciate them. This shop has the best standard line-up of any in Tokyo, but unlike JPH, which tends to make minor variations of established cakes, PS goes a completely different direction with the new cakes, so there isn't correlation. 

I'm about 5 cakes behind on them and it's a new cake-off season, so they'll probably rack up more wins and I'll get further behind even if I'm busy working on the exceptional, quite fine, and fine shops.

Viron, Coloré Pistache

Went down to Viron the following Monday, the one in Shibuya, which generally has a better selection late at night. Actually, they had three new cakes, so I got one, Coloré Pistache, even if I wasn't sure that it was their turn to have a new cake. Despite the decoration, the inside accent fruit for the pistachio outside is cherry, which is a common pairing with pistachio, and yet I haven't been happy with it until this cake. This was excellent, so I'm glad I gave in to it. This was to last me for a few days, until I did an early cake-off on Thursday, and put Viron back in the running to keep it's superb shop slot against BE and another challenger.

Frédéric Cassel, Fleur de Shuro

Catching up for the week, Wednesday, I got out to Ginza Mitsukoshi for a new cake from Frédéric Cassel. There were three choices, and I went for the one most against my preference, just because it was most different and FC is good at overcoming my prejudices. I got the Fleur de Shuro, or that's that I think it was, where shuro is the name of a genus of Asian palms, which doesn't really make sense in context. This is a good solid almond biscuit, which is really important for balance and texture against all the soft parts. Obviously, it's a gelatin dome, though the inside isn't so gelatinous.  There's streusel in there, obviously not dry, cherry compote, cherry mousse, and cherry cream (cherries are Western and Eastern), and elderflower is the other flavor, which I hope was inside, as I didn't eat the decoration (I've been burned in the past). On the edge of my comfortable zone, and yet it all works together, as a different kind of cake, to give an excellent result.

No running, just bicycling to Mitsukoshi and doing muscle training inside, which I've managed to do every weekday so far. Thursday I didn't get patisserie cake, but I did managed to run 45 minutes as well as 15 minutes muscle training (squats, curls, and shoulder and back exercises).

Jean-Paul Hévin, Verrine Lavande & Verrine Banane Griotte

Sunday afternoon, as brunch dessert, we got cake for two from Jean-Paul Hévin: Verrine Lavande & Verrine Banane Griotte, the new new items. The first is white chocolate, lavender, and grapefruit, and the second is Dominican chocolate, banana sauce, and cherry. Neither are really my ideal flavors. The verrine Lavande was good, but pretty mind, though you wouldn't really want intense grapefruit or lavender, I would think, so this was as designed and offered a variation over the other cake, which is sweet, and the verrine not ordered, which is coffee and presumably bitter. Despite continued reservations about banana, this was excellent. I have to acknowledge that it's not the fruit, but how it's used that's important. This at least catches me up with JPH's last cake-off wins. 

Frédéric Cassel, Jardin d'été

The other cake I got in the running on the afternoon of Sunday from Frédéric Cassel was Jardin d'été, which poses a problem, as it seems to be exactly the same as Fraisier, which I just confirmed was a great cake, only with different fruit. The different fruits are at least as good, probably better, so I guess this one qualifies as a great cake too, which is not after all a problem, except I still need a cake from another shop to do a first-round cake-off.

Paris S'éveille, Tarte Printanière

Got an early start, about 8 am, with the intention to try the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisu-Nishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop. I'm not too surprised that I failed, though large parts of it are unchanged. It's up to 13 km now and I did most of it before I saw that I had skipped a cafe in a religious bookstore; it was on the map, but I needed to make a little loop around it at around halfway. Otherwise, I made some on-the-fly changes, which would have be fine (I knew the official route, but could see how it needed to be fixed). Will try again tomorrow if I wake up early, which I tend to do. On the way, and only 30 minutes out (which wasn't that early with my breakfast before 6 am), I tried a Croissant d'Almonde (not sure if that was the name they used), from the Crossroad Bakery over in Ebisu-Nishi. They require a drink to eat in, so I got takeout and ducked into a garage next door to get out of the rain and maintain social distancing from anyone using the sidewalk, though the streets were pretty empty everywhere I went, except maybe near the supermarket coming back. The Croissant was the kind I liked: baked through, not wet. Definitely good, but didn't seem like the best I've had, or I'm just not into this particular pastry now. I didn't bother to get a picture.

After finding where I went wrong, at around 10:20, I had an hour plus walk (I had had enough running) to Jiyuugaoka, where I got a new cake from Paris S'éveille: Tarte Printanière (Spring Tart). This is a cherry compote tart (with a lot of cherry) as a base and I think almond and pistachio paste/top. I'm not that into cherry, but I'm trying to have an open mind. Certainly, appreciate the nuts and it's a quality tart, so I have to say it's excellent. I'll look forward to the next tart, if that's what comes next, but I'm up to day now, so probably I won't have anything to get from this this month unless it's for a cake-off, but next one with them probably won't be until August.

I also got a Croissant from them (which I ate immediately coming home, whereas the cake was after the first half of lunch), which I've give them the benefit of the doubt and say was excellent. Unless I want to include their brioche, I might be up to date surveying their pastries, though there are probably some pastry-like baked goods that I could retry, but don't necessarily need to be fresh, which is my excuse for revisiting shops for pastries.

Frédéric Cassel, Macaronade Sakura

Still catching up on blogging and posting pictures on my neighborhood running course map, I come to last Thursday afternoon. I had gone one getting cake I hadn't been able to get all week due to late working hours and early shop closing hours. After a half-lunch, I ate a new cake from the quite superb Frédéric Cassel that I had gotten at Ginza Mitsukoshi at the end of the afternoon run. The name is dubious, but the closest I could get to French (I don't think macaronade actually usually refers to macarons, but I don't really know). Obviously, its cherry, in the form of cream, but also raspberry in an almond macaron sandwich. I'm not always a fan of these types of cakes and cherry is definitely a difficult fruit for cakes with me, but this was definitely excellent, so I can certainly recommend it to anyone interested in either.

Lenôtre: Chocolat Griotte

Tuesday afternoon (still a holiday) and went for another run trying to do neighborhood paths, this time back to the new/revised Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama loop counterclockwise, which I was successful at, and also tried the Takeshita clump and was doing fine and could have finished it (I had done all the hard parts), but decided that it was time to revise the north loop and stop running through the shrine grounds. Everyone cuts through there and it's really wide and nobody has ever yelled at me for running where I do (can't say that about everywhere, though nowhere on a course). So I'll need to do that again.

Out of order, earlier in the day, since Viron doesn't have any new cakes for me and I've had less items that from other shops in the superb group, I stopped by and got a Pain aux Raisins. It was quite eggy, which was my complaint about Excelsior Caffé's, so really I owe them an apology (and perhaps another morning visit). It was still good, but not my favorite.

On the run, I decided that I have to add Max Brenner as a site, even if I don't respect chocolate pizza, it's valid, and Strawberry Mania has take-out strawberry macarons (though you might have to buy a set of three, which would disqualify them on price grounds). Also, back at home, I noted that Strawberry Fetish is near there in Totti Candy Factory (or vice verses) and one of them has cake on stick, which is overpriced and I wish they didn't, but I might have to visit them some day.

After the run, and dinner, I had Lenôtre's Chocolat Griotte. My original plan for the afternoon (and it would have been early afternoon), was to go to Ryoura, as next in line for a visit of holiday only places, but I saw that Lenôtre had multiple new things that were sold out at the end of the day when I had visited before, so I figured I need to take this chance instead. Actually, they have 4 new things, but two have coffee and one is a glass dessert, so the Chocolat Griotte was the obvious choice. The inside is completely soft, which is probably why it's uneven. It was good, but not exciting. The inside is like a fondant, despite being chilled, plush there's more cherry. I'm not big on cherries, so maybe something else would like this flavor more.

As it stands, Lenôtre, which was promoted early due to a hole in the quite exception shop list when Origines Cacao dropped out and Viron got promoted, is dropped to the lowest position and is now under threat by Pierre Gagnaire. Since Lenôtre doesn't have another cake I'm in a hurry to try anyway, I can wait until at least next week to get to Pierre Gagnaire. I'll try a new cake from Jinguumae next and then finish bringing En Vedette even with other exceptional shops. (And Friday I'll rest, at least from cake.)

Monmouth Tea, Black Cherry Tart

For today's cake, I planned to visit a neighborhood shop for a first cake, as well as run five recently updated neighborhood loops, all successfully, though two I still have to do counterclockwise to complete. One new site was the Monmouth Tea shop, which also has a tart, quiche, and muffins. I wasn't sure how cake-like or pastry-like the tart would be, but took it anyway. I was priced on the low side, so I wasn't surprised that it was a butter tart rather than something richer, but was plenty substantial. I'm calling it a pastry, but it was excellent, so even if I'm look for cake, I might stop there again and see whether the tart flavor has changed.

Sadaharu Aoki, Forêt Rouge

Tuesday, I got cake first from Sadaharu Aoki at Isetan, managing to get the last piece of Forêt Rouge, unlike the previous day in Marunouchi, though that was much earlier in the day. Having straightened out the Akasaka loop on the neighborhood running course, I went by bicycle to Tokyo Midtown to park for free next to the loop. Before running, I found out that Toshi Yoroizuka is now open on Tuesdays, as of this month, when I went to double check their summer holiday, which is next Tuesday to the following Sunday. I successfully completed the planned course and did not have any corrections to make (at that time). I also completed the counterclockwise from-memory runs of the Akasaka 9 east and west loops, so that takes cake of the dead-end loops in the Akasaka clump. This time I was up to 1:8 walking to running, but the distance did not give me 10 full cycles, so I'll be holding that for a while, and may need to do specific interval training run next week if I don't try a longer route.

The cake was excellent quality and liquor (kirsch syrup)-soaked cherries in cherry suwent well with the cream and almond biscuit, so I'll rate this one was excellent.

Went out about noon, which is about right to visit L'Atelier Motozo, since they don't open until 1 pm (staffing problems). On the way, I checked out some potential sites on the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama--Shibuya loop. The neighborhood is a maze and the current loop violates my general rules in a couple place, so in adding a Starbucks, I noticed some other cafés that seemed to require that I split up this loop and made three tentative new loops, one for east of Omotesandou Station, one for the southern part of Cat Road, and one circling the UN university. At least one current shop had disappeared and I found more cafés, so the loops still aren't stable. Also, I'm considering adding a couple more chain coffee shops, though I also ruled one out (it was more like a restaurant than a café).

I also worked on reviewing some current very minor loops and did them clockwise: the Shibuya east loop, Dougenzaka loop, and Sakuragaoka-chou loop. Then I finally made I way down to L'Atelier Motozo a little before 2 pm. Eating in requires ordering a drink, so I got take-out. It took longer to get home than I liked, maybe 10 minutes over the hour I told them, so I'm not sure whether the center of the cake would have been more solid if I had been faster, though I did give it about an hour in the refrigerator. This shop does Italian deserts, so not my usual style. I went with Fiore Fata, which they mark as "original", versus the mostly traditional deserts, at least in name. This is  blancmange, cherry sauce, cranberry syrup, inside of pistachio mousse, which is wrapped in an herb spongy cake. Can't say that I need more blancmange in my cakes, but this was fine as filler and the cherry and cranberry harmonized well so the fruit taste was better than I would usually expect from either separately and that fruit went well with the pistachio. That much was good, but wrapping it in the herb cake sent this into excellent territory. So this shop too will remain the the quite fine shop list. Not sure that I'm going to be able to slim this list down to the desired 32 shops. Not even sure I can get it down to few enough shops that I could cut the bottom of the list below and get two ranks of shops totally around 96 cakes. Well, there's always the next big cut when I go for having sampled 4 cakes from each in this one and 2 from the one below. That shouldn't take more than a few more years.

Completely forgot to talk about the running. It was misty rain almost the whole way, which looks like the best I can expect for the next week. Total, I was out about three hours, though there were obviously some stopped for popping in shops and taking a few photos. It had been three days since my last run, so this time I included 9 intervals of 4 minutes of running, so I'm still taking it easy but starting to build up. I'm running long enough that I could do a local training run without walking and cover some regular loops.

L'Abricotier, Illanka

Once again, I was back in Nakano-ku to visit L'Abricotier. My excuse, besides that I can only visit on holidays, is that I planned to do a cake-off with their cake next week, so it's a priority not to get behind on them, even though otherwise Ryoura and Éclat des Jours (which doesn't require a holiday, but it's become harder to get something new late in the evening), which are also in the quite exceptional list, probably deserve turns first.

I ate in, as I usually do for new cakes there. I went with a new cake to the shop again, Illanka, but I was not that impressed. It was good, though a little melty, but not any more than advertised, cherry and chocolate mousse. Of course, that combination could have gone very wrong, so I'm not discounting that it was good, but I need something more at this point. Someone more into cherries might be able to better distinguish what's special about this cake, or maybe a more refined appreciation of chocolate.

The bicycling for the cake took a couple hours (I'll say that unconsciously I wanted more exercise, and that's how I got so offtrack on the way there). I ate a half-lunch and went out again walking to see how my feet are doing. I practiced too neighborhood running course loops from memory, the Akasaka 7 and 8 loops, which form their own clump of routes, though total they are only about 2 km, less than the one-way distance to reach them. I was successful (Akasaka 8 is trivial and 7 just has one tricky bit) and no great problem with my feet despite a fast pace and having already done bicycling, though I was pretty tired afterward (not running tired, but still). I might repeat tomorrow night, this time counterclockwise for each, since I plan to get cake from Isetan, though really I should do my indoor workout and maybe some cleaning to free up time later in the week.

Sadaharu Aoki: Éclair Sakura

Monday, I again didn't run due to not liking how my feet felt. I hadn't gone out on Sunday at all, so it was a little surprised that the feeling was as strong as it was just from walking a kilometer at a time, though when I was running daily, my morning foot pain was worse (not sure that today even would count as pain, just a somewhat weird burning numbness), but less the sort to be concerned about. Still, I went to Isetan and got something, so I was not that bad: the Éclair Sakura from Sadaharu Aoki. All the éclair I've gotten from them have been good and my experience is that fruit goes well with éclair. That was also true with this one. Not sure what was in it besides the obvious cherry, but quite rich for custard. I suspect alcohol. Anyway, not to have another new cake from Sadaharu Aoki. They have one more that I can try, so I'll save it for next week.

Les Années Folles: Pistache Griotte

After resting a day, I went for a run down to Les Années Folles to pick up a third (blogged) cake from a shop on my bloated quite good list. This is about a 10 km run, so typical, though I'm not used to running down to there directly, so there were some wrong turns.

I usually steer clear of cherry in cakes, and I've have consistently bad experiences with pistachio and cherry, though that relates to the commonness of the pairing and my trying lots of shops. Nevertheless, or because of this, it seemed time to give cherry a chance, as otherwise I've been into pistachio cakes recently, and got the Pistache Griotte. I was thinking that cherry as an accent to pistachio was reasonable, but actually this cake was more of the reverse, or maybe just a complete harmonization. In any case, it was definitely cherry and I was will to accept and appreciate that this time. The top decoration did not have much holding it place, it it ended up in a corner of the box, but mostly the cake was as original received.

Frédéric Cassel, Pistache Griotte

I decided late to switch my next neighborhood run to Thursday, since I want to test doing a really long run (maybe on the scale of what started my foot problems last time, though I seem to be better, and wiser, now) Saturday. So I went down to try out the recently modified again Daikanyama-chou--Dougenzaka--Ebisunishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop. No surprise, but it needs further modification, again due to recent construction. I was fine until near the end, where I wasn't sure whether I need to run down a side alley before heading to the main road, so I scouted ahead before doubling back. Also, they've finished constructing a sort of park/pedestiran walk along Shibuya River, so I want to incorporate that into my course, though the last bit seems overly private/commercial to count, being more part of a food court than a park. Long run, almost 2 hours of actual running and I was feeling it in my muscles, which is rare, and yet still running strong at the end.

For a snack, I stopped at Hikarie, thinking that I would try again to get quiche from Quiche Yoroizuka, but they were gone, so no more Quiche Yoroizuka, as far as I know. I respect their effort, and there is no lack of other little tart places with people lining up, so it was not a ridiculous idea. Anyway, they were replaced by Stone Cold Creamery Sand, which are buttercream between cookies. I considered getting one, but they gave me a little sample of the mango (which I wouldn't have picked) and decided no, I don't need any more again. Instead, I visited Bagel & Bagel and was ready to get a chocolate bagel with white chocolate chunks, or something like that, but then I saw the brownies. I took the straight chocolate. I ate it in a park and it was fudgy and high energy, but it took frustratingly long to unwrap and was just ok, so I regret not getting something fresh.

Friday I again deviated from my initial plan and decided I'd do Frédéric Cassel instead, and got the new Pistache Griotte. I walked home, to save my feet for tomorrow, but I took an unnecessarily long path, swinging by Del'Immo and then through Hibiya Park and the long way back way down to Akazaka-Mitsuke. Fortunately, the rain did not return.

The cake was excellent, as mostly expected. I haven't appreciated pistachio and cherry cake much, or cherry cake in general, but this was a deep/dark cherry in some sense, with the cherry on top soaked in cherry liquor. There was also some crunch in a layer of the cake, as well as cherry gelatin, which was all fine. This is definitely on the sweet side, which suits me, but still high quality.

Bien-être: Mille-Feuille au Cheries

Ran out to Bien-être, which took about 33 minutes, long enough at this stage of my recovery (and summer). As usual, the eating space was full, so I got the Mille-Feuille au Cheries, which is the American cherry version of their mille-feuille, and walked it home. Not sure that I have to take it that slow, but I'd hate to wrong the other way and I wanted my cake to be in good shape when I ate it. I'm willing run longer tomorrow, though the weekend will probably be cycling again (which is much easier in this heat, or would be if my arm were fully recovered).

The cake was much like their "au Raisin" version, except for the substitution of cherries: it's heavy on the mille-feuille and fruit and very light on the custard. It's not dramatic, but it's nice to just enjoy mille-feuille. The mille-feuille is moderately loose/dense as mille-feuille goes, which works well; a lot of dense mille-feuille would seem overly dry, I think, and I'd actually want more custard, and too loose..., well, not my idea of cake. Anyway, it satisfies my criterion for being excellent.

Bien-être, Pistachio and American Cherry Chiboust

Friday, I went back to Bien-être, jogging a little over 2 km of the roundtrip. At the shop, I tried the current pistachio chiboust, Pistachio and American Cherry Chiboust, in their eating space (there were 4 other customers eating). Not sure that American cherry is as good as grapefruit, but it's fine and provides a different texture from other components that grapefruit can't. Anyway, this thick tart under a thick layer of chiboust is still unlike other cakes that I have regularly, so I can say that this is great, like the previous version that seems to have a very short line-up life. Now I really did to do a first-round cake-off, but I'm busy this weekend and some of next.

Thursday, I got back to Libertable, also running just 2 km of the roundtrip and walking the rest. That time I got the regular Feuilletée. It looks more like a croissant than the chocolate one does and was more bread-like inside than I expected. However, the texture is less like a typical croissant than the chocolate version was. It has a kind of chewiness that actually made it more interesting, which made it excellent to me. I hope they make some other pastries, though these two might be the only two I've seen; if they don't have one next time I go, I'd also like another new cake, but I should make sure to ask them about their pastry schedule.

P. Ikeda: Cassiser

Tuesday, I went to Shinjuku Takashimaya looking for something different and got a cake from Patisserie Ikeda via the Patisseieria, which may be their only Tokyo distributor. They count as a neighborhood cake shop, so I felt obligated to try them, though nothing looked very appealing. Maybe I should have gone with cheesecake again, but I choose Cassiser, or at least that is my guess at the spelling, if there is a French spelling. It's cassis mousse and cherry custard cream. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, it was not any better than it looked. Not that it tasted bad, it was ok, but what seemed like a not very good idea was not improved by the execution, though I'm not an audience for the this cake, so this shop and its cake might be fine for someone else.

Exercise was about an hour of riding over the more extreme parts of yesterday's shadowing of the east Yotsuka neighborhood course, though in the reverse direction (so the worst slope I could do going up), plus one lap around Akasaka Palace Grounds. Then it was push-ups at home.

Wednesday, I cycled again, toward Ginza, stopping by P. Shima to verify that they still had the same pastries that I've tried previously, which they do. At Ginza Mitsukoshi, I tried again and failed to get the basic cream puff from F. Cassel (sold out), and instead got a couple Mini Pain aux Raisins from Dalloyau. Even perhaps a little not fresh at the end of the day, they were excellent.