La Précieuse, Montelimar and Waguri Mont-Blanc

Though it doesn't feel so long ago now, last Saturday I got a couple cakes for two from one of the shops on my quite fine group, La Précieuse on the north side of the Yotsuya Station building. I got the take-out, though they have a café space that I've used before. My choice was Montelimar, since I've had good luck with at least one cake of that name, and I like pistachio (hard to see in the picture, but the bottom is pistachio cream) and I think the top is mousse with honey and fruit. It was good. 

The other cake was the Waguri (domestic chestnut) Mont-Blanc. The sign says that you have to wait a couple minutes, because they make them fresh, but I think they didn't take so much time in the backroom. It also was good and had a meringue base, if I'm remembering correctly. So it's definitely a fine shop, but will get cut if I every manage to do a cut (I'm running out of shops to test, so it will probably depend on whether I add any new shops that make it to that level).

Jean-Paul Hévin, Maya

Thursday, I had the morning off and slightly ran to Fiorentina Pastry Boutique down in Roppongi Hills to find out whether they still have Estate in the line-up with they don't. That was as much as I could manage as far as running, so I walked to Ginza Mitsukoshi. The big goal was to get one of the new cakes at Jean-Paul Hévin, which I've never had before. There is also one that I've only seen in Kyoto previously, which was excellent, so I might have that again. I let one of the great ones from last month go without having again, just because I couldn't do a cake-off, which is unfortunately. This month, I don't have a match for Bergamot.

But for now, what I got was Maya, which follows the usual JPH pattern as far as chocolate cakes with layers of mousse. This uses Ecuador chocolate mousse, Provence honey nougatine, crème brûlée, a chestnut biscuit, and croustillant. This gives it relatively sharp taste (I don't really know how to describe chocolate), but that's good, great actually. 

Yu Sasage, Montélimar Noisette

Took a half day off and didn't accomplish many things. That's normal, but I actually did try and did accomplish a few things, as the list of things is pretty long now. However, especially because I mistook the Sadaharu Aoki schedule (there was a new cake today, but only in Nagoya, which gets special treatment from JPH as well), I did go for cake, by bicycle. Yu Sasage is along the borderline between the exceptional and quite exceptional shops and was in line for a cake to try to make the jump. There were a couple promising new cakes, the other a chiboust, but I went with the Montélimar Noisette, which was explained as having Montélimar mousse, which I didn't find informative, since Montélimar is a place name, though I guess I new it was associated with honey. Actually, they were using it to mean honey meringue, which I'll have to try to remember and confirm that as tracking with what other shops mean. Other components are, obviously, hazelnuts, in mousse form, as well as dacquoise. It was definitely good, but is maybe too small and light a cake for me. This might be a case were some fruit would help.

 

Viron, Montélimar

I saw that Viron, which is nominally a superb shop (even though I hadn't had enough cakes from them, there was hole in the category when OC closed) had a new cake when I was out the Saturday before passing through Shibuya but decided not to get too greedy. It wasn't at (nor was there a card for it) in Marunouchi when I visited later (not that I was ready to buy then either), which might be a pattern for these two shops. So I did run to the Shibuya shop on Monday (not my usual pattern, but it's not farther) and late though it was, they still had plenty of cakes and I could get Montélimar. I was hoping it would be similar to a cake of the same name from L'A because that is great (almond mousse, I think) and this shop might make a better one. However, not the same kind of cake at all. It's been a while, but I think it was coconut cream honey mousse and fruit, which could still be okay, but this was not so exciting, though it seem appropriate as a bakery shop cake somehow. Unfortunately, I like more extravagant things, so this put the shop under threat from a couple shops in the quite exceptional category. 

Actually, I didn't take the shortest path and got a picture of the new Aoyama Grand, which would to be on the old neighborhood route, since it's going to have a bakery, which is not yet open. What is open (though maybe not actually at the time of night) was a tea shop. Still haven't visited after a couple weeks: it's more of a taking-a-walk kind of place, which it's too hot and mask-requiring now to do any of.

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. 

Jean-Paul Hévin: Alexandra

After a morning of pastries and a visit to Jean-Paul Hévin to get Alexandra. I went out again and visited few shops I wanted pictures of over in the Suga Shrine clump of my neighborhood running course, and then tried to run the Gaien clump, where, in reverse order, I found what was wrong with one of the loops and then, when it didn't matter, turned too soon. Hadn't known about a shrine.

On the way back, I enabled verification that I should not get the Chewy Roll (Hokkaido Milk Cream Cake Roll) from Lawson Station.

All this is just to day talking about the Alexandra, which is my least favorite JPH cake as of now. It's Madagascar chocolate mousse (which might be fine), thyme honey infused biscuit, vanilla Bavarian cream, and raspberry gelatin. These don't seem like things I want in a chocolate cake in generally, and they certainly didn't combine well. Actually, the cake had a seedy texture, so maybe there is actual thyme, not just honey from bees that collected pollen from thyme. Well, it was ok; at least it was educational, I suppose: don't get cakes like this.

En Vedette, Miel

Every day working later, but Shibuya Scramble Square is open until 21:00, I think, and the nearby Viron is open later, so no problem today. Like yesterday, today was to reward a cake-off winner, or at least that's my excuse for visiting En Vedette slightly early, though this time I ran, but no time for an indoor workout. They still recognized me, and pointed out that I was getting a different cake this time, after getting the same cake just a few days apart. I went with Miel, which means honey, which this had with apricot. Apricot is not a sweet fruit and they did not use as much sweetener maybe as other apricot cakes I had, so this was a little tougher for me to like. Also, it's a dome with gelatin inside. Yet, there were different textures, from the soft meringue on top to a coarse/nutty base biscuit, so I definitely respect this, and like it, so I think excellent isn't not just the prejudice of the moment for this shop. It's not a huge counter, though, and I've had 7 cakes from them now, so getting the next two new ones to catch them up for promotion to exceptional is going to be with limited choices. But that's next week's problem.

Au Bon Vieux Temps, Pourriture and Michalak, Tarte Chocolat Pecan

Saturday, I woke early and was out running by about 6 am. I was planning to take rest from cake, so I started by working on the neighborhood course and was able to do the revised Moto-Azabu--Azabu-Juuban loop clockwise, getting a lot of missing photos of sites on that loop along the way, though I missed one. Of course, most of the shops were closed, which is not ideal, but since otherwise it's dark, I'm okay with that. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I noticed a shrine along the way that should have been on the Roppongi 6 loop, so I modified it (making it the Roppongi 5&6 loop), so it was one step forward and two steps back. After that, I reviewed the course on the west side of Hiroo, ruling out some coffee shops as unworthy and figuring out where I need to double-back to get near something sites. I added a bunch of photos there two. I was waiting for Hikarie to open at 10 am, so I also went over and tried to run the Ebisu-Nishi east and west loops, but only managed the easy east one (so at least I'm even for the day: two directs completed but two directions on one loop that need redoing). I had wanted to get a pastry I saw at Hikarie a couple weeks back, but it was already gone, so I went completely without fancy sweets. I more than made up for it the next day.

Sunday, I was busy in the middle of the day, so I decided to get cake for two in the morning. I went to Au Bon Vieux Temps because I owe them for a cake-off win and got a new cake, Pourriture. Then I took the train back and got the new tart from Michalak, who I want more new cakes than the line-up has quickly supplied. This time Tarte Chocolat Pican, perhaps (they don't keep an updated Internet presence for me to check about new cakes). I also got a Picnic Maron from Sadaharu Aoki, which I consider a pastry and I half-intended to get Saturday but decided that there was not hurry.

Au Bon Vieux Temps is maybe not the best choice for a cake to share, but their cakes are so small: half of one is two small bites. I'm going to say that Pourriture was great and see if a cake-off proves me wrong. It's a blue cheese and honey mousse over roasted fig on a semi-dry fig tart, or that's how I'm parsing the Japanese card.

The chocolate pecan tart was the best Michalak tart I've had. We both agreed that it was excellent. I've turned the stop on top where I damaged it after getting it safely in the refrigerator to the back, and that might be a fingerprint on the front.

The pastry, which has custard inside, as well as the chestnut cream, was also excellent. It's only around for a short time, exclusively at Shinjuku Isetan.

In the evening, I finished off the Moto-Azabu--Azabu-Juuban loop, again, and got the Roppongi 5&6 loop. I wet as far as Tokyo Midtown by bicycle, so it was only about 45 minutes of running.

L'Abricotier, Montelimar

Montelimar from L'Abricotier

For the final, 10th day of GW, I choose one holiday-only shop and decided that, under the new shop ranking system, L'Abricotier was by far under-visited as a quite excellent shop with 4 cake-off wins so far. They had a new cake, Montelimar, which is a honey mousse with dried fruit and hazelnuts on top of a hazelnut and Japanese apricot tart. This combination of fruit and nuts is common to many of their cakes, especially my favorite ones from them. I wondering whether there are other nuts in, since some seemed green, suggesting pistachio, and the combination gave a taste that made me think of butter pecan.

Cross-sectional view

I didn't ask, since another customer had come in, but there is a center custard-like disk, but I couldn't distinguish the taste. This cake was great, unlike others I have. I'll match it against Paris-Brest in the next cake-off I think, which is also hazelnuts, but praliné, so completely different from the raw fruity nuts of today's cake, in keeping with the contrast between the trendy modern foreign Machalak and the neighborhood shop L'Abricotier. Less of a ride today. I'll probably rest from even bicycling tomorrow, which I was thinking would be easy because all my cakes during the week will be from Isetan, since I only have two more cakes this week and might eschew pastries (and definitely bread) for reasons of weight control under my current reduced level of activity. I was hoping for a new cake from Sadaharu Aoki, since they are are finishing their main seasonal cakes today, but I'm now thinking that the chance of something totally new is small, and it has not been that long since I had cake from Machalak, so I'm not sure what I was going to get from Isetan. At least I'll visit them to see what the situation is. Maybe I'll finally get to P. Très Calme or Jun Honma again this week, assuming that they aren't taking the week off.

Henri Charpentier: The Shortcake & Honey Lemon Rare Cheese

No running, but was in Isetan last Friday and was asked who had (strawberry) short cake. Not my thing, so I wasn't really prepared (or I would have suggested one of a couple other places), but figured that was exactly what Henri Charpentier was for and of course they were well supplied. As a second cake, I choose the Honey Lemon Rare Cheese. Despite not regarding them so highly these were both high-quality definitely good cakes. I particular liked the cheesecake, which bordered on excellent, though there's a lot of competition in these rare cheesecake category, so I think I'll stick with good. So if their line-up looks appealing to you, then I wouldn't discouraging you from these maybe more traditional/conventional fresh cakes.

Saturday: Suminami H&C, Yu Sasage

Today's route covered the Suminami History and Culture course, which is not that far from Yotsuya, but is relatively long. Started out with 6.13 km of moderate-paced running to get to the start (should have been a little shorter). The route covered the Yakushi Peaceful Wood Walk from Araiyakushi-mae Station (where I couldn't find a starting marker, which often there isn't) to Koenji Station, which runs past (P.) l'Abricotier, a shop worth checking out, and has a little path along whatever canal goes to Myoshoji Park.. From Koenji Station to Nishi("West")-Eifuku Station goes along the river (I'm not sure how to get Google Maps to show river names) Wadabori Park. There's a little construction, but the start is open and the detours are mostly obvious; however, the new map cuts into the park north of the baseball grounds, whereas the markers keep following the river for two more bridges, before heading south. Also, there is a spur to read the big map in front of the destination station which I missed on the way there but found on the way back. Part three is the Kanda River River Walk, which spends a lot of time along Kanda River, of course, which also has a lot of parks, all the way to Takaido Station. From there is Karasuyama Temple Village Walk, which actually runs along the raised expressway and the main surface street paralleling it, but has lots of parks and has a wide well-marked path along that part. This last walk ends at Chitose-Karasuyama Station, on Keiou Line. Total, I ran 16.69 km (including the unintentional detours, but not the construction detours, which weren't that big) slowly (though not that slowly). Lots of parks, rivers, and old temples. Mostly very well marked. I really like and recommend this course, although you do go through a lot of shopping streets around stations, so don't expect to race through it.

Conveniently, this put me near Yu Sasage, which is a priority "worthy" shop. This day's cake was Comparaison, which is a milk chocolate mousse cake with honey cream in the center and lemon, or at least lemon peel. I've had this basic kind of cake before (as far as chocolate mousse with lemon), but here the lemon was more intense, as juice bursts out when biting pieces of peel, and balanced delicious chocolate, despite being milk chocolate (so I still don't know why some chocolate cakes turn me off) and the base in the middle was a nut in chocolate disk (pecan, I think), a small layer of mousse above that, and a little cake disk above that go under the cream part. I mention the base, because I've had asymmetric lumps as the base of mousse cakes which did not impress me. This was 490 yen, which is fairly reasonable and was an excellent cake, so Yu Sasage remains a priority, even among worthy shops, since it could still theoretically turn out to be great. I did not, however, see any kind of fondant, so I wonder if the one I had before was just for Isetan, even if it wasn't marked that.

The trip back took longer than I intended. After eating my cake under one of the parks under the expressway (where the main surface road isn't right next to it), I followed the expressway as well as I could back to the H&C course and to part three. I had intended to get on Honan Dori, but turned too soon and end up on Inokashira Dori, which heads back toward the expressway (which dips south before heading back north, which is why I didn't walk to follow it. Well, extra distance is not terrible, so I followed Road 431 (I think it was Nakano Road) back in, going past P. Diamond and Concent, neither of which I know anything about or looked particularly special, although Concent was more a cafe and they had baked goods (and multiple customers). So the trip was 15.81 km at a slow pace.

That gives me a total of 6.1 km of moderate running and 32.5 km, so 38.6 km total, a reasonable expansion of last week's, but less than the 40 km that was my target maximum. Still, it was a busy day otherwise, so it was good to get that much in.

Thursday: Q-Pot Cafe.

Did a longer walk, close to 6 km, which probably took 1 hour, so longer than Tuesday's, but no hills, so it might not be a good comparison. Didn't feel any problems, so I'm thinking I'll try to run down to Yotsuya Station tomorrow night and get some jam, good milk, and dark rum for cooking from the grocery and something sweet from Paul.

It's been a while since I went somewhere new that wasn't in Isetan. "Q-Pot Cafe." was listed as "Unvisited" on my map for a long time, so I finally visited. I should probably be more selective about what I put on my map from Joshi+. I know better than to do cafés, but I like to try something new sometimes, and this was within range. The cake was Sachertorte for 690 yen. It was fine. I assume there was some actual apricot in it, because there were a few pieces of some chewy fruit. Not really anything special, and definitely not my first choice for Sachertorte. Not much else among the selection that I would be interested in. I'm tempted to just mark them "Unworthy" so I can just forget about them, but it doesn't seem fair after one cake that was fine, so I'll mark the "Good".

I also got a croissant from the nearby Rituel (par Christophe Vasseur), which was 350 yen and, while artistic and good, definitely not as good as some 200 yen ones I've had.

Walking to Précieuse

I tried walking instead of running today, which was okay. This time 2.5 km might have been enough, although my shin never got more than a little tight even going double, and I didn't have trouble or feel anything climbing the stairs when I came home, but I think tomorrow that I'll not run. Still, I want cake, because today's cake was not great, so I'll go to Isetan, probably (I'm not expecting to work late again tomorrow).

Actually, I went to Yotsu Atré to visit Paul with the hope of getting a canelé, which they did not have. I've seen a photo of one posted for them at Tabelog, so it was not my imagination that they have them sometimes. Next time I go, I'll ask what their schedule is for making them.

Instead, I got a Coccinelle (ladybug) for 500 yen from La Précieuse, which is several millimeters thick of somewhat gelatinous raspberry mousse, and there is honey mousse, which maybe the cream belong that, which did not really have a distinct taste. The irregular pile of caramel and almond slices (?) that formed the anchor in the middle was okay, and the cake was good, but it's really not the kind of cake that I want to be eating, so I'm downgrading them to just good. Given that I've posted on at least 6 cakes from each my "Great" shops, I'd like to get all the "Worthy"s up to 2 cakes before thinking about getting all the "Good" shops up to at least 1 cake. I have 11 great shops now (ignoring redundant branches) and I think 28 worthy ones, so 6:2 seems like a good balance.