Esquisse Cinq: Armagnac

Took the long way (down through Meiji Jingu Gaien to Aoyama Avenue) to Ginza. Stopped at Hibiya and then walked the rest of the way to Mitsukoshi Ginza, where Frédéric Cassel had already ended their November Inspiration cakes. Checking later online, and they will have a couple specials starting Dec. 1, so maybe I'll go back tomorrow. For today, I used my planned backup, Esquisse Cinq (エスキス サンク), which I had not bought from before, although Sweet Sonobe, has, so I added them to my list of places to visit a while back. They're in Tokyu Ginza Plaza, where they have a tea salon. I got the Armagnac (アルマニャック, 750 yen).

This was definitely good, elegant, and sophisticated. The base is nuts, though I'm not sure what kind. Seemed to be a mix, but something in the walnut or cashew and something about the shape of a pistachio, which might have been what that was, though I couldn't really work out the familiar taste. The dome is a delicate shell, inside which is caramel sauce along with almost pudding. It had a certain Japanese pudding feeling, but was thankfully sweeter, so I didn't have a problem with it. Was not disappointed and the quality was high, but it wasn't something I'm interested in having again, so no huge hurry to go back. I should mention that the counter person mentioned that there is cognac in it, but like a reviewer online noted, you can't actually tell. Sorry, the lighting is not very flattering in the photo, though I suppose they never are for these night park ones.  

In running news, my elaborate schedule for the next two weeks is ruined, because I ran the 9+ km at 10 km/h (strictly, I was about 9.9 going out and just over 9.5 coming back), so my budget is completely out of wack and there is no point in doing a training run where my "sprint" is 10 km/h now. Still, that's my only 10 km/h running in the last week, so I'm not suddenly going to kill the +40% penalty for going over 9 km/h, but I might reduce it to 20% starting now, since I've been doing at least a little 10 km/h for quite a while. All this is trivia to anyone but me, of course, but I'm enjoying and able to run faster now, it seems, so that's good news. Still a ways to go on my left hand, though.

Origines Cacao: Bacchus

As planned, I did not run this weekend. Instead, I baked a new cake recipe that I had been collecting ingredients for and did my first cycling for a long time. My knee seems to be okay for it.

The ride was out to Jiyugaoka to Origines Cacao to check whether they are "near-great" and ended up being about a 26 km round trip. I timed the first part was doing about 14 km/h, trying to go the equivalent of a walk as far as effort. It gives me a benchmark. Supposedly wind resistance makes speeding up on a bicycle more difficult for running, which I don't know how I'll handle, but I'm treating this as the equivalent of one-fourth the 7 km/h running distance, as far as my budget (I'm rescaling my budget to 7 km/h running from 6 km/h walking, though that information is not so useful to anyone else).

At Origines Cacao, I struggled to find something that looked good that I hadn't had, so I went with the promoted new one, Bacchus, for 594 yen, which is a chocolate cake with cognac and apricot. It's good, being layers of soft sponge with liquor and chocolate frosting, but maybe because chocolate layer cake is too much like what I've had plenty of in the US, it's not really so exciting. Sorry, it was so bright, I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of (and I forgot the shop again, as usual).

This is not the cake I'm looking for, so Origines Cacao goes back in the "excellent" list. That only leaves me five near-greats, whereas I wanted at least doubt the great, of which currently I have four, although if Dalloyau dropped a level, that would work out, so I keep working on the bottom of the near-greats until I get them up to where I want (half the number of cakes of the greats) before I try to update them.

At least the croissant from Au Bon Vieux Temps was excellent. They have delicious looking baked goods, but I don't think I've gotten anything before.

I also got another chocolate from Henri le Roux on Saturday, Madagascar: This was was excellent too.

Learned/got experience with a lot in my last cake attempt, Essor, I think it's called (I don't have the page with the real French name, just the phonetic Japanese). There was nothing that I did well, but I got the general idea about several parts. The result was pretty ugly, so no photos and I ate the evidence.

Essor has two layers of hazelnut biscuit, which was okay, but a little underdone because I used an upside-down tart form on top of a silicon mat because I don't have a 14.4 cm diameter round Flexipan (nor am I able to find out how I could get one, since even the company doesn't list that size, though it would probably would be about 5000 yen, which is more than I want to pay). For the (gelatin) hazelnut Bavarian cream disk, I completely failed to whipped up the cream, and splattered most of it around the kitchen: the new balloon whisk with the new mixer is proving difficult to use. However, it tasted good, and wasn't overly gummy (though would be different with more and proper whipped cream). This time I needed a 12.5 cm Flexipan (also unavailable), so I used a right-side-up one with some plastic wrap, which was a little leaky but worked well enough. The　(gelatin) orange concentrate and liquor layer, whose phonetic French name I can't figure out besides the orange part, really didn't like my substitute for the 12.5 cm Flexipan and broke into pieces when I tried to separate it from the form bottom (also, I had to boil down my first attempt and try again, as the gelatin and concentrate separated during freezing). This was gummy and too strong to sample by itself, but actually was fine in the cake, except for being ugly. Finally, I had to submerge/embed these layers in creme chocolat-blanc d'orange, again with a little gelatin; I tried chilling everything, but still had a splatter problem, so I did it by hand and didn't whip it enough (I don't really know what 6-minute whip looks like). The 15 cm ring form, which I did buy, leaked, but that might be due to the cream being too thin. It formed a solid cake okay and was good, though I'm not really that interested in cake that tastes that orange, so I won't be trying this again. I still have some orange concentrate, but maybe I'll use it and the liquor for macaron filling. Very educational, though. Now I just need to learn to whip cream, since it's half the next cake, Gateau Fraise.

Sadaharu Aoki (Marunouchi): Zen, Cote d'Ivoire

Visited the cafe at Marunouchi today, which was almost empty at 3:30 pm on a rainy Monday. I had wanted to go to the café to get the Millefeuille Vanille, which is not available at Isetan. Instead, we got the Zen (which was supposedly an exclusive, but I've seen posts claiming Midtown sources, which is consistent with the way "exclusive" is used by Tokyo Patisserie) and Cote d'Ivoire, neither of which I expected to be my favorite, but they were both excellent.

The Zen was 891 yen with tax and is dominantly sesame paste, a really thick layer in mine, I think, compared to posts online, who are the source of my ingredient lists, although they were buying from different shops, so maybe the recipe varies, which would be interesting but inconvenient for trying to keep a record of who sells what, under what name, and how it is. Midtown and Paris posters agreed cognac, which I didn't notice (Paris poster claimed it was about triple the amount of a normal cake, basically killing it). Now, there is a green layer, which I assumed had green tea (which agrees with a different poster), though I couldn't say for sure I tasted that. Midtown poster claims chocolate cream, although maybe that was around the dark sesame part, and hazelnut biscuit. As I said, this was excellent, but I'm not convinced that I need a lot of sesame cakes, just like I don't need a lot of chestnut cakes. This is seasonal and was available only in August last year.

The Cote d'Ivoire is available at Isetan, but is a low priority for me because it's coconut, I've fairly sure, although the Sadaharu Aoki diary (in relation to a cooking class on it in 2010) only mentions passion fruit and white chocolate, which I can believe. The coconut is maybe just in the biscuit, and was not enough to kill it for me, but I would have preferred something else. Still, excellent for 780 yen including tax. Also seasonal, but was available June thru August last year.

This was a café, so double those prices to include the fruit tea. The Pomme Caramel is excellent, though. The Douce Fruits was not so exciting.

Jean-Paul Hevin: Matcha and Pyramide

I missed lunch, so it was suggested that it was okay for me to have (most of) two pieces of cake at the Jean-Paul Hévin Chocolat Bar at Isetan. I didn't resist the suggestion.

First, I had Pyramide, which apparently has a slight Cognac flavor in a cake of pistachio and bitter ganache. It was definitely good, and I'm going to say that it was excellent, but actually I can't remember well (I mean, I only remember that I was thinking more about other things than whether I was going to say it was good or excellent). This was 572 yen plus tax. Amazingly, apparently this is only the third of the five spécialités that I've blogged.

 I got it with オーボーデュフル―ヴ (ouboudeyufuruuv), which I've forgotten what it is when it's at home, some sort of herb tea, I think, not exciting anyway.

I also had some of Ghana hot chocolate I think, which was good, and parts of Vanille and Pistache'in maracon, which were excellent and good.

For the second cake, I has Matcha, because it's seasonal and because I didn't have my notes and knew that I had never blogged this, or maybe had it. Actually, it was great (maybe). Besides green tea mousse, which was not particularly strong, although that is the nature of green tea, is griotte (Morello) cherry gel, which is semi-Japanese, and yuzu cream, which is very Japanese. This was more expensive at 680 yen plus tax and is the second seasonal cake, not counting two types of éclair, despite being up to 14 cakes now.

1 h jogging and Jean-Paul Hévin

Didn't have a lot of time, so thought I was going to take a quick jog to a new place, but couldn't confirm the location beforehand and didn't find it or want to spend more time looking, so I stopped at Jean-Paul Hévin on the way back. Unfortunately, that didn't work out great either.

Today I got tｗo seasonal cakes, the Mont-Noir and the Marquise for 674 and 618 yen, respectively. The Mont-Noir is a Mont-Blanc with cassis gelatin mixed with the chestnut cream and whipped cream, giving it a purple look. It's sprinkled with chocolate and chestnut power. The base crust is the same great one as the Mont-Blanc, almond meringue, very airy. This is good, but not as good as the Mont-Blanc, I'm told by someone who better appreciates this variety. The Marquise has a hazelnut flavored crust, which is as far as I had read at the store (there is a line outside and I want to try everything anyway). However, if I'd read further, I would have found out that it has coffee (that would have been a deal-killer) and cognac, and chocolate one assumes. Didn't notice that it was coffee when I ate it but did notice that it was not great, although not actually bad, just not something I need.