Frédéric Cassel: Saint Honoré Noix de Pécan Citron Vert

Last Sunday, after a visit to an exceptional shop, I walked (due to knee problems, but also because I was carrying one cake) to Ginza Mitsukoshi to get a new cake from Frédéric Cassel, trying to balance catching up the shops at the bottom with the top shops. I tried the Saint Honoré Noix de Pécan Citron Vert, which is self explanatory. It was good, but not their best saint honoré. Pecan is pretty rare in cake but I haven't had much luck with it so far.

Jean-Paul Hévin, Verrine Rhubarbe Mangue

 Way back on Tuesday, after working late, I stopped in at the Isetan Jean-Paul Hévin and was able to get the last of the new item: Verrine Rhubarbe Mangue, which has the obvious ingredients. The top is probably mango gelatin, then white chocolate mousse, and finally rhubarb sauce cut with lime. It was the usual high quality of JPH, so I can say that it was excellent. 

I'll note at this point, I'm far enough ahead on FC that JPH deserves a second sample of an excellent cake, but I've already done that with those in the current line-up, so I'll have to wait. That leaves at least a couple non-cake items to try, maybe next weekend. I haven't tried any of their sauces.

Frédéric Cassel, Savarin Orange

Sunday, I was right back to Ginza Mitsukoshi, since Frédéric Cassel won the cake-off, and anyway, are top of the shops with new cakes. I went with the Savarin Orange, so no alcohol. Though orange, it has lime juice to make it more tropical. Inside is vanilla cream, but on top is the staple mascarpone cream on top of the orange. They recommend with tea, which works for me. This was excellent, fortunately, and certainly better than the previous savarin I had from their neighbor counter, though it might have had more volume (though at greater price). This restores them to the the current target level, though the target is about to get raised, and they're at the top, so they will probably get another cake this weekend, though 

I'll say ahead of time that I got one cake ahead on Thursday this week, whereas last week I was one behind, so there will be at least one cake less this weekend. 

I should mention that I also got a second pastry from Johan, a Pain au Chocolat, and it was good, but nothing memorable. They used to have a super decadent version that also had pistachio when they had a Shinjuku shop, but I haven't seen it in Ginza.

Pierre Hermé, Bayadère

For last week, I had three cakes left for the weekdays, but didn't expect to find that many. However, if I wanted to try a lot of new shops, there are places out there on my neighborhood running map, such as this cafe, which was open close to 9 pm in Roppongi, with an outdoor cake case and a "take-out" sign, so it gets added to the map. There are still closer in ones open on the neighborhood course.

One major player that is still open until 7 pm is Pierre Hermé, which I owed a cake from a cake-off win a while back, so I got something new, Bayadère. This is lime in the white chocolate with strawberry and rhubarb compote, passion fruit with lime gelatin and a sablé breton base. It's definitely good and interesting, but perhaps I should have gone for the new cheesecake, though I can't regret taking a gamble on something more ambitiously different. Among my supposedly superb shops, this one is most precarious, so a couple challengers from the quite exceptional list once again have a chance to overtake it (not that either has enough new cakes to match it anyway).

Frédéric Cassel, Tarte Calamansi

Continuing from Ryoura, I put on my mask and used the train to go to Ginza Mitsukoshi and get the new cake of the month from Frédéric Cassel: Tarte Calamansi. The tart is just what the name says, though I've never heard of this fruit before. It's a coconut tart base, obviously, and the top is mixed calamansi and vanilla cream, with lime peal sprinkled in. It's very tropical, which is a hard sell for me, but ultimately it won and I can it was excellent, though I'm not sure that I need more calamansi cakes, particularly.

The afternoon run was all local loops, all successfully completed (about 2.5 hours of running): the Minami-Motomachi--Samon-chou--Suga-chou--Shinanomachi--Wakaba--Yotsuya loop, which is up to 8.44 km and hits all the main Soka Gakkai buildings now, the Daikyou-chou--Shinanomachi loop, which is up to 2.32 km and now includes the folk music museum, since Soka Gakkai claims it on the map of the complex (they also claim their main newspaper buildings, but I'm drawing the line there, as well as buildings that are dormitories or guest houses or shuttered, which might not be fair, but it's hard enough working everything in), the Samon-chou--Yotsuya loop, which is up to 1.1 km (though the link to the previous loop is now much shorter) and now includes the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Headquarters and whatever the above shop is, the Sendagaya central loop, which is up to 1.90 km and now needs to be part of the cluster as the loop leading to it, as does the final loop, the Sendagaya 3 loop which is up to 404 m and has an OK, which is a grocery store, well named since the Two-Layer Creamcheese Tart I got there was only ok.

Frédéric Cassel: Inspiration Guava

Because my hip was hurting, as one reason, I bicycled to Frédéric Cassel at Ginza Mitsukoshi and got this month's inspiration: Inspiration Guava. This is very tropical, with guava, lime, lemon, baba (okay, nothing to do with the tropics), rum, and vanilla with a coconut sablé as the base. From anywhere else, I'd probably pass this up, but I can count on Frédéric Cassel and this was excellent. I ate it after coming home and doing a full indoor workout (the other reason for not running; I should really be doing these every three days), which takes me about an hour, but for 14 sets, I should be able to do them in 35 minutes, if I made more of them timed intense 1-minute workouts, which right now the weight training isn't. Maybe I'll that try once and see how it goes.

Michalak, Monak Pablova

Intended to do a short run and got sucked into a long run after starting the day thinking I should really rest, as my feet were hurting in the morning, but the lure of the road called me (and my feet felt fine). I was practicing my minor deviation of my Jinguumae central loop, which covers the north end of Cat Street to the Jinguumae shopping street and looping around to Michalak to get the last available type of fresh cake for this exceptional shop. This is the Monak Pablova, which is a take out cake consisting of a shell and filling. There was space inside, so I stayed in. This is the cheapest of the ones of this type listed on the web site and the only one I've see lately (now is jar dessert season). Actually, the other two are listed under cakes rather than take-out, which confuses me, but they are all called Monak. The Monak Pablova is lime meringue (also, they put some freshly grated lime peel on top) with raspberry confit and lychee cream. It's take out because it will dissolve if you don't eat in within 30 minutes, they said. It was good, but not enough to make me impatient to try a different flavor of these (pear-yuzu and chocolate-hazelnut are listed on the website). I might have to wait until fall to get new regular cakes, assuming they'll have new ones.

While eating in, I looked at Facebook and saw that Bien-être's mille-feuille had gone American cherry, so I need to run over there to confirm that so had the pistachio chiboust. I was able to make it in time and did confirm. They were semi-confident that they would have it for another week or two. I'm busy this weekend, but I might try serving one early next week any getting a cake from Isetan for a mid-week second-round cake-off, probably with a Michalak cake, though I have one other possibility at Shinjuku Station for a backup. If that works, and I want it, I can do a third round the following weekend, though I'm not sure ahead of time what the availability will be (the opponent would be either FC's Choux Vanille or ABVT's Marjolaine, depending on whether the chiboust loses or wins.

Because the actual run was intended to be shorter, rather than try to do 11 intervals of 4 minutes running, I made the intervals 5 min with the additional 30 s intervals for warm up and a semi-dash, but the deviation to visit Bien-être had me reach 40 minutes of running before I finished, so I walked after 8 intervals. Still haven't decided what I'll do tomorrow. It's rain every day in varying amounts, but I'll rest either Tuesday or Wednesday and am busy Thursday and the weekend, but maybe I'll squeeze some running on nearby local loops.

Très Calme, Cremeux Lime

Today's plan was to go to Très Calme for a new cake, since their cake won the last cake-off (both their great cakes have had third-round cake-offs now). I was not expecting to have enough time to walk and I was feeling that maybe my feet needed rest from the recent return to some running, so I went by bicycle. I decided to get Cremeux Lime, which is a lime cheesecake. Then, I was afraid it was going to be too mild, since I was thinking the description was mascarpone cheese, but now I'm not so sure what it said. Anyway, it wasn't any milder than a typical cream cheesecake and the lime and cheese worked well enough together that I can definitely say that it was excellent cake, so this shop keeps meeting my expectations as an an exceptional cake shop even with the tenth cake from there.

Frédéric Cassel, Inspiration Citron Vert Pomme Verveine

Catching up on cakes for the last couple weeks, if not on cake-off winners or even Frédéric Cassel's cake-off wins, I did a run to that counter at Ginza Mitsukoshi and got the Inspiration Citron Vert Pomme Verveine, which is a pretty out-of-control name. This is lemon verbena scented Bavarian cream, green apple compote, biscuit with lime peel squeezing baked, lime itself, and the hard base must be the sablé breton. The apple decoration is white chocolate, but its all richer than I expected. The apple dominates but harmonizes will with different gradations of citrus. I would say it was excellent.

Charmant Gourmand: various

Friday I took off work and went to Charmant Gourmand (after lunch, though from Thursday they had lunch there, which I had not known) and got a variety plate, the name of which I'll have to update later, though I think the menu varies. This had their Moelleux au Chocolat Figue, Madeleine Lemon Lime, Crème d'Anjou, and I think some kind of dacquoise sandwich, though it's not something I found outside the salon. The moelleux au chocolat was the most interesting, being more like a thick chocolate filling than anything baked. (This is my first time to find a moelleux that had a separately made firm base.) I would say the moelleux was excellent and the rest were good. Since Crème d'Anjou is not so different from cheesecake, I'll treat it and the moelleux as cakes, whereas the other two are baked goods, so they don't really affect my cake shop rating. Still, one excellent and one good makes it at least in the running for quite good, so I'll go back and get one of the other flavors of moelleux au chocolat some time, though they are expensive for the size. The house-blend tea was also definitely good.

Hidomi, Ilhéur

Yesterday, I took a rest from running, though some of my shopping was running related and it took a lot of walking. Still ate up the same about of time, so I still managed to get practically nothing else done in the evening. Since I was out at Odakyu Halc, I sampled Pompadour as a first post and got a Pain aux Raisins. Not actually very special, but not bad, so I'll say it was good. This counts as being on the neighborhood course since I've allowed Shinjuku Takashimaya (as across the street from a west Shinjuku loop) and they are connected by underground tunnel.

Today, I had the afternoon off, so I ran out to Hidemi (with lots of stretching), as a candidate for promotion from the very good tier of cake shops. I did not write it down, but it was fairly memorable, so I think I have it right as Ilhéur (the "h" is silent). I was attracted to the chocolate, but Hidemi is about fruit, in this case pineapple, lime, and coconut (if that counts). The harmony doesn't quite do it for me though, and I really don't like the texture of shredded coconut meat, certainly not in a smooth cream/gelatin. Still it was definitely interesting and well made, so it was pleasant and I can call it good, but Hidemi is off the radar for promotion and now I'm noticing Noix de Beurre in its place.

Bien-être: Jasmine Lime

Went back to Bien-être, this time by bicycle, though it was not in fact hotter today than yesterday, maybe about the same, but apparently I was hearing about tomorrow when I thought it was going to be hotter, because they are saying 39 degC for the weekend. That's only further northwest, I hope, where they tend to make the Tokyo records. Still, it might not be until next Friday that I actually run again, since I also have a busy midweek planned with little time for running.

They did have cakes that I hadn't had before and I could even avoid the verrine and get Jasmine Lime, which I had seen before recently, so I figured it was worth keeping trying visiting despite yesterday's failure. I asked about eating in and they said that they were full, which I was okay with. Then, after I select my cake, they offered to let me sit at the counter. Not sure why the story changed, but I took it. Maybe they took a second to calculate that it was only going to take me a few minutes to eat cake by myself. Not sure whether it's cheaper. They save themselves a box, ice packs, and a bag (actually, I would have reused a bag), get a glass, plate, knife and fork dirty and use a paper napkin and a wetwipe.

I kind of messed up my review of this cake. It was going along fine at first. It's quite sweet, again reminding me of Christmas cookies like another recent cake that I didn't care much for, though moister cookies that evoke better memories, apparently. I probably wouldn't have been able to guess lime, much less jasmine, though there was a dark green bottom (which I probably would have guessed pistachio, which can be fruity). There was a layer of red in there, so that might have been from red fruit, judging from the top. The problem came at the end, when it subtly turned on me and actually the aftertaste was a little bitter, which didn't make any sense (I was expecting to get sick of the sweetness). If you look carefully, you'll notice a stem sticking up behind the cassis/currants. I think I accidentally ate that (I definitely did not eat the plastic; give me that much credit), and that's were the bitterness came from. I was mulling over calling this great even maybe but decided against it, I think before eating the cassis stem, so I'm going to call this excellent and make it a somewhat priority to give it another chance to confirm, at least if I get to a point that I'm retrying excellent cakes, which I'm on the verge of doing for some shops.

Now, Bien-être would have reached #3 status based on reviews so far, putting as among the quite superb shops, except I haven't had that many cakes from them and I've managed to avoid some that I don't expect to be thrilled by, so I'm holding off final judgement. Even for a superb shop, I'd like a few more cakes from them and their competition doesn't have anything new for me to try anyway, so their relative rankings aren't so important.

In other Bien-être news, Pistachio and Grapefruit Chiboust is back (I'm guessing that they're out of American cherries), so suddenly I'm doing a first-round cake-off for tomorrow.

Bigarreaux, Citron Vert and Sampa

No running or cycling and only normal walking involved, but on Sunday night I shared cake for two from Bigarreaux, which was the visiting patisserie at Isetan until today. I didn't really need more cake from them, but they are an excellent shop, so I was happy to share.

We got Citron Vert, which is obviously lime. Citron is one of their signature cakes, so it seemed a reasonable choice. Also, Sampa (I checked on two days, but it's still possible that I was misreading the diacritic on the last character and it was actually Samba), which is milk chocolate with layers of mango and passion fruit. They were both definitely good, but only the Sampa really interested me enough to call it excellent, though I have to wonder whether I was just seduced by the sugar rush, since it was certainly not its sophistication, not that sophistication is much of a substitute for great cake.

Monday, I went down to Paris S'éveille, which is my #3 shop but doesn't have new cakes, so I got Chausson Pomme (maybe, though Chausson aux Pommes sounds better) and Pain aux Raisins. These were both definitely good, but didn't excite me as much as their top pastries. They still have a few more pastries for me to try, mostly baked tarts, before I have to try something else or revisit an excellent cake. I went by bicycle, which was quite painful to begin with, due to my sprained arm. But at this point, nothing is going to get better without rehabilitation, so I put up with the pain and my arm improved over time, though it was a little tricky nonetheless.

Paris S'éveille: Citron Vert/Myrtille/Lavande

Did sort of a run down to Paris S'éveille. At least the initial parts of the trip were running, with some stops for photographs of places through the same loop I've been practicing, and will probably continue practicing this week (it's more than 8 km and it takes a few kilometers to get to a starting point), but somewhere past Shibuya Station, I got lazy and mostly walked, because I had the time. I blame congestion from pollen more than the high winds and hills, because I felt, not seriously short of breath, just breathing harder than I wanted to. During the week, I'm usually in more of a hurry, at least at least until I get wherever is selling me pastry or cake.

Paris S'éveille had two new cakes this month, both of the same style, sort of a sliced log of fruit flavors (there are a couple layers of there of biscuit that presumably help keep the layers from sliding around, though I flipped it on its side fairly early on). It's a little gelatinous, which is how you get mousse to hold a shape, which I'm not thrilled by, but not unreasonable so and maybe not more than great cakes of had of other shapes. My cake was Citron Vert/Myrtille/Lavande, so lime, bilberries (or blueberries), and lavender. The other choice was orange, something, and peach. I'm prejudiced against this kind of cake, but I'm rooting for Paris S'éveille, so I hope those balanced out to get a fair evaluation, which was that this is actually an excellent cake, so I'm more optimistic about the orange one (though I should get the Choux desert sometime).

Paris S'éveille: Tarte au Yuzu et Citron Vert

In response to their win of Friday's cake-off, I visited Paris S'éveille for something new and got Tarte au Yuzu et Citron Vert (600 yen). In terms of taste, it's definitely good, with a nice balance of citrus flavors, but in terms of construction, it seems overly delicate to work as a cake. I would prefer this taste with something more bike-sized (and not stuck to cardboard, which is inconvenient for eating). It's a nice little tart for the season, with tea, I suppose, but not something I'm terribly interested in. Still a superb shop with several great cakes which have done well in cake-offs.

On the way back, I visited Les Cacaos, which had about the same selection as when last I visited, which is fine and good to know for a cake-off. I also stopped at the Trek store by Roppongi Hills, since my current bike is heavy and has a slightly bent front wheel, a broken shifter cable (so it's now a one-speed), and rust various other places (besides the shifter cable). Today was it's last ride outside of Shinjuku, I think, but it's still usable for local shopping. Probably will get the Trek FX 3, 2018 model.

Walking to Limevert: Mer

Had a half day off today, so walked to Limevert patisserie café, which took about 13 km at I guess 5 km/h (had trouble with starting and stopping chronometer correctly), sometimes in heavy rain (tｙphoon pasｓing through tonight). Happy keeping it slow, as I want to work on my distance before trying again to regain some speed. Managed to follow the correct route in the middle for once going to this area.

The end is easy, because I'm following the elevated train line for several stations. Never can remember the station name (Soshigaya-ohkura), but recognize Ultraman (not sure what the connection is, and there's at least one more in Yokohama).

Shop does not really stand out and is narrow, but they have the usual stuff and pastries. Already ordered the canelé (230 yen) for the road before noticing the bostock (which would have been hard to eat neatly walking down the street), but it was good (it was a well-baked one, which I like over soft ones).

The Mer (550 yen) is various things: earl grey flavo(u)red milk chocolate, apricot gelatin, and caramel walnuts. It was definitely excellent and I'm going to call it great because I haven't had one this before and I'd like to have it again. For good or bad, the flavor makes me think of pie. For one thing, it's not very firm, but it took a while to bring it back. Not sure what the connection to the "Sea" is.

Almost forgot, tried a couple more caramels from Henri le Roux yesterday: Citron Vert (lime) and Diable Rose (banana, raspberry, and passion fruit). Very good candy and it's interesting to taste very good candy, but I prefer the chocolates.

Paris S'éveille: Giverny

It's the weekend, so I went to Jiyugaoka by bicycle, doing some reconnaissance along the way.

Not part of the plan, but I noticed Roulé (by 1904), so I stopped and verified through the window that they have at least a couple cakes besides roll cake.

Failed to find the pastry shop in the Cerulean Tower Tokyu: it's not shown on the floor map, but I've now learned what restaurant it is next to according to the website. 

Failed to find Patisserie de la Famille in Sangenjaya (from Sweet Sonobe), but it seems to have morphed into Patisserie Susucrier, which was advertising birthday cakes prominently; I'll pass till I hear something good about it. 

Failed to find Patisserie Octobre, but only because I was looking at the Plaisir location, so now I know Plaisir has closed up [or perhaps not], although the name is still used for activities at Shinjuku Isetan's New York Week now. 

I had a hard time figuring out a good way to get from there to Paris S'éveille and kept going the wrong way. Finally got to the target Paris S'éveille and got the Giverny for 620 yen, this time take-out, so I could take a picture. This is pistachio and raspberries, which may sound familiar from earlier in the week, but this cake was definitely better than okay. It was at least excellent and I'm going to go with great, although that may just be by comparison. It's pistachio cream, raspberry, bavarian cream, on a pistachio biscuit on top of a lime-flavored chocolate crunch bottom. Quite satisfying in terms of flavor and sweetness.

Escaped without dropping more money at Cuoca, because I was just there and haven't had a chance to try out the recipe I bought the hazelnut powder for (or the carob powder I bought a while back).

Aux Bacchanales

Today's run was to Aux Bacchanales in Ginza, which I decided had been unfairly booted from the list of potentially great cake shops. Started out 3.5 km fast despite my left knee. Even if my left knee is not happy, I can go faster by increasing my pace, not my stride length. I took it slow the next 0.95 km to the Inner Moat because there was a hill and I can never make the main traffic lights anyway. Along the main part of the south stretch of the inner mode, I did 1.1 km at a moderate speed. Then I did 1.0 km at racing speed, first just to make the next light and then just to continue until I got to Yamanote Line. From there, I went to Aux Bacchanales, got my cake, and got home, which was another 5.5 km achieved at a moderate space by keeping my pace fast (at least outside Ginza), which carrying cake does not really interfere with, although being tired does. So about .9 very slow, 6.6 moderate, 3.5 fast, and 1.0 racing speed, for a total of 12.0 km, which isn't too bad, but I'm going to need more the next few days to keep my weekly total up.

The cake was a Fraisier au Citron Vert, which is a strawberry custard cake, with icing, flavored with lime, for 465 yen. I forgot/didn't bother to take the ice pack out when I put it in the refrigerator, so it got really cold, which might not have been good for it, but didn't stop me from enjoying it and made it easy to cut the icy strawberries all the way through. The cake part was so moist that it was not that different from the custard part, but I was fine with that. Also, very sweet, which also worked with what is a sort of standard cake (without the lime flavor, which I was not conscious of) and so could be boring. I am surprised to find this excellent, so I guess Aux Bacchanales remains in the running for great. The hard part will be to get more cake, since they don't have many types to begin with and they literally only had two pieces, and I was there fairly early for a workday. I'll have to make sure that I have a backup place next time I go, or conversely that I always check there first rather than someplace else in the area that I'm less worried about selling out.

Origines Cacao (Isetan visit)

No running today, but I was walking a lot, even at my normal fast speed, and didn't get more than a little sore. I'll keep stretching, but I might be ready to do some light running. First I'll see whether walking a few kilometers during the day in my work shoes put me back. Of course, I've eaten so much cake this weekend, and I've got so much pecan pie tarts and tartlets, as well as pecan tassies (never can remember that word), that I don't need to be visiting cake shops. On the other hand, my cake shop visits have been limited to so few locations, so I want to get out there.

For cake, I went to Origines Cacao, who was visiting Isetan. In order that I sampled them, I got a Noisette Citron Vert, Alicante again, and Nakayama, each for 500, 509, and 580 plus 8% tax (127), although I don't know which was which and I probably won't get back to find out, although the Alicante was 550 previously, so it was probably not the cheapest one.

The Noisette Citron Vert, which is hazelnuts among chocolate with just enough lime to notice (must be pieces, because I got a sudden stronger taste in one bite). I thought this was great.

Then I sampled the Alicante (I didn't bother to take a new picture), which was okay, but it didn't strike me as clearly great like it did the previous time. This is a reminder that no evaluation is perfect and there are a lot of other factors, such as else I've eaten and drunk. Still, it was good.

The Nakayama is in the mont-blanc family, and it was fine but not my thing. Even the little bit of chocolate has a big effect, so I liked it more than Viron's mont-blanc.