Cake: (Boutique) Troisgros: Sacher Abricot and Savarin au Rhum

Busy today, so no running. Was over at Odakyu, so I tried Troisgros, since they have a fairly large area in B2 of Odakyu that I noticed recently, with a cake counter (with no staff for awhile), a bread counter, and other sections that I did not notice in detail. This is actually the Boutique, and the same name is used for a café on the 8th floor and a restaurant. I haven't been that impressed by the quality of cake at the actual cafés or counters at Odakyu, but this looked above average, so I tried it.

I got the Sacher Abricot for 572 yen and the Savarin au Rhum for 540. Both were okay, but neither was great. The Sacher Abricot is feuillantine praline and chocolate biscuit (both good) with chocolate ganache and apricot (good, although too little to compete well with the chocolate, a common problem with chocolate mousse cakes). I suppose the mousse was the ganache, and made up the bulk and seemed watery to me (I don't know what that really indicates, but I don't like it), so it had merits and demerits. One Savarin au Rhum is much like another to me, but this seemed fairly average. There was another chocolate that I might have gotten if I was choosing both cakes today, but I'm not in a hurry to go back, despite it's location. It still remains true that Isetan is about the whole good place for cake among the department stores, although I know of a couple individually good cakes at Takashimaya.

Sadaharu Aoki: Valencia and laps

Yesterday I worked out inside and didn't get cake because I planned to get something expensive today, which I did: the Valencia from Sadaharu Aoki (Isetan, Shinjuku) for 840 yen.

Today, running was laps around Meiji Jingu Gaien again, with the goal being 7 laps within 7'45'' per lap. Due to shoelace problems, there was an extra half-lap not timed, in addition to the normal warm-up running to get to the course. Numbers were 50'45'' total, with laps 7'28'', 7'07'' (actually, the first lap time was long and and the second was short due to button-pushing problems in the dark while running), 7'33'', 7'27'', 7'19'', 7'11'', and 6'41''. Next I'll try 8 laps within 7'30'' each, which means I'll have to pick up the pace on that third lap, although my average was under 7'15'' this time at least, so probably I'll be okay still. 

The cake was great. This is a "strange marriage of orange mousse and feuillantine praline". Well, it's not so strange, but it is delicious, though not a strong taste, which is a good thing. Sweet but not too sweet. The feuillantine is nice and crunchy and the base biscuit is also very good. The cake is probably large for this style of fancy French cakes compared to some cheaper shops. I don't imagine that they are willing to compromise on the size or ingredients, despite price rises that are hitting everyone.