Ginza Sembikiya, Setoka no Mousse

I had an excellent first cake, so I finally followed up and got this cake. On the minus side, once you take the plastic away, it's not that good at supporting itself, but so it goes. The official photo is a little better, but they went for texture over strength, which I appreciate. This from Ginza Sembikiya, maybe the least widespread of the Sembikiya. They have a main shop in Ginza, but also a counter at Ginza 6, where I went, since I was coming from Mitsukoshi and it's connected underground, though I guess the main shop almost is. They also had a +1000 yen sponge strawberry cake (which is huge for a piece of cake in Japan), but I passed. This is Setoka no Mousse, where Setoka is a kind of mikan, as one can see. It's really nice and I can say excellent, especially since I don't get so many mikan cakes. The mousse is mascarpone cheese, of course, so it's just a medium. I guess I'm going to need to get back there and try the strawberry cake. Hopefully I can get it when I can split it with someone.

Repos, Fromage Vanille & Fraisier (Muscat)

Got cake for two on Saturday from Repos (a.k.a. P. Ease), a fine shop that had given me one excellent cake from their new counter at Isetan. This time, I chose the cheesecake, Fromage Vanille, and a Fraisier, though with Muscat grapes substituted for traditional strawberries (also cheese based, but mascarpone is tasteless, so it doesn't really count; it's just a medium). 

While more soufflé-like than my preferred cheesecake, it was still definitely good. 

The interesting thing about the Fraisier, besides the contradictory name, is that it comes with olive oil that you pour over it (though I guess that's a standard thing with them for this type of cake, Muscat or not). It also was good, and interesting, but I was less convinced. This will remain a fine shop in my list.

Frédéric Cassel, Mille Crêpes Potiron

The last of the cakes on Sunday was from Frédéric Cassel and catches me up with new cakes from them with still two weeks to go until the next month. This is Mille Crêpes Potiron, which has several things going against it. One, is I don't appreciate crêpes, at all, though my biggest exposure is milk crêpe, which makes rollcake look sophisticated, by my estimation, though actually stacking crêpes is does seem more technically difficult. The other is pumpkin (or at leas squash) as a cake flavor. Lastly, decoration cakes, even from good shops often sacrifice the eating experience for appearance. On the other hand, Frédéric Cassel has a good track record for taking types of cakes I've dismissed and impressing me. Also, this is not milk, it's rum and raisin, along with the pumpkin and the ever present FC staple mascarpone cheese (a neutral texture and taste medium for whatever you want to do). As it happens, this was the best of the cakes I had, and definitely good, which certainly puts it at the top of crêpe-based cakes and would make be consider future cakes, though I'll try to stay clear of milk-flavored, really in any kind of cake.

 

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.

Frédéric Cassel, Roulé Pêche

As I mentioned in the previous post, I got a Frédéric Cassel, Roulé Pêche on Sunday, as my third cake. This is a peach role cake with cream and mascarpone cheese (a common ingredient at FC). The description doesn't indicate anything about the biscuit part, but it seems less spongy that roll cake usually is, so I suspect some almond powder. It it may just because it includes a crust, whereas usually they cut that off. Anyway, I think it's an improvement and the peach goes well and is a nice variation, so I can say this was excellent, which might be a first time for saying that about a roll cake.

On the running front, I think that was the day I tried the full cake shop neighbor route I've constructed, which extends from southwest Yotsuya Sta., past Sendagaya Sta. and around the park to southeast Shinjuku/Shinjuku San-choume Sta. It's about 12 km and covers 16 neighborhoods (though there are fewer than 16 cake shop sites and it doesn't actually enter every neighborhood, unlike the Top site course). Friday night covered a longer course, 16 km 20 neighborhoods. More recently, I'm working on a major park (namely, the ones with toilets) neighbor course, though I'm working late and haven't even done the part I know.

Pierre Gagnaire, La Panthère Rose

Thursday late afternoon, I ran down to Pierre Gagnaire's shop for a 9th cake, as a detour from the neighborhood running course Roppongi 7 loop, which I just thought I had, but found a flaw (due to allowing the taiyaki place, since they have custard-filled ones now). I took a chance and lost, but it was educational. There were actually only 3 cake types left, one of which is great but I was looking for something new. I went with La Panthère Rose, on the grounds that there is always a panther and the "verte" wasn't that impressive, but that might be more a fault of the variation. This is a mascarpone cheese cake flavored with strawberry, the flavor of the season (ending this month, according to the original plan I saw). I had trouble with the texture of this until the very end. It might have to do with how much gelatin was in it (i.e., too much), or maybe just mascarpone cheese needs to warmed up even longer than whipped cream when taken from the refrigerator, so longer than 5 minutes, according to one authority. I'll try that next time I deal with this kind of cake.

Pierre Hermé, Tarte Rose et Jasmin

Finally got to Isetan (by virtue of taking PM off Thursday) and got a new cake from Pierre Hermé in response to their recent cake-off winner. I even got the (probably) monthly cake I was targeting:  Tarte Rose et Jasmin. This looks a lot like their vanilla tart, which is one of their great cakes. I had this after a half lunch, before even running (there was afternoon running for more cake, to catch up from lots of overtime work this and the previous week, and then evening running). This cake was definitely excellent. I really like this solid tart. The mascarpone cheese has a good texture, but no flavor, so it's good for adding sutler flavors. I think even Earl Grey tea was a little strong for this cake, but in general I prefer stronger cake, so I doubt it makes a huge difference, just something to think about for next time. This is a good enough showing that the shop is not in danger for it's superb shop position from challengers below, for the moment.

Camélia, Carmelina

Camélia, Carmelina

Went to Camélia in Ginza for a second cake, since the first one was excellent. Got the cake I was looking at, Carmelina (the "n" is silent in the Japanese at least). This is a relative thick dacquoise base with large bits of hazelnuts under cream made of caramel and mascarpone cheese (based on a user post; I didn't try to research the card that closely, since I forget during running anyway). Definitely my kind of thing and excellent. I like the flavors, though the usual ones, and the texture mix is great. This seems to be a quite fine shop. I'll probably be back next week for the third cake. I only ran one way, walking back to protect the cake, and my side, which is still giving me trouble. I'm probably over stretching it, so I'll watch it. It's not the side that needs the most stretching anyway.

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.

Michalak, Tarte Pistache

Today, cake from Michalak again, as planned. I tried a second tart, the Tarte Pistache. The base is almond cream flavored with orange and rose, pistachio praliné, with mascarpone cheese, whipped cream, and pistachio paste in white chocolate icing, or some combination of those ingredients, as I got a little lost in the description online. The result is somewhat mild, as one would expect from mascarpone cheese and whipped cream, though still definitely good, and better from me than the previous chocolate one, though similar. This shop is currently beating some excellent ones, so it will probably get promoted from quite good, but it hasn't reached 6 cakes yet and I haven't tested either of the cakes identified as great yet in a cake-off, so I'll hold off a little while long. In the meantime, I'll try a new shop over the weekend, I hope, as well as the planned cake-off to test the first great cake.

L'Abricotier: Chataigne

Sunday, I put off doing the giant new loop as a one-way neighborhood course run (~45 km) or going to Maison Douce (~35 km) and instead went to P. L'Abricotier, but by a very long route, going by dozens of sites to add to my neighborhood course map, which is getting pretty out of control. I don't actually have much of the actual course plotted out where I was adding and I was still finding (or not finding) sites to include as I went.

At the shop, I ate in and was not alone, though just one couple, so I took the far table (there are only three tiny tables). I got the Chataigne and probably shouldn't have. The card warned me that it had bitter caramel, which turned out to mean the caramel of Japanese purin (pudding), which I hate (the caramel, that is). But then, it's not as bad as coffee, and I can accept a certain amount of that in cake sometimes. In this case, the base cake was mascarpone cheese flavored (in the inside) with the caramel, and chestnut supposedly for contrast, though it would take a lot more chestnut to balance the caramel for me. So I did not like this cake, but on the other hand, it was well constructed, as advertised, and the flavor of caramel seemed normal for its type. I'm putting it down as good and will try to avoid bitter caramel. However, good is not enough to save the shop from slipping from quite excellent to just excellent, which it was already doing, so I went ahead and finally made that change, swapping it with Clair de Lune, though I'm worried that it might not be able to keep the position.

That phase of running took about 3 hours, so I decided to save my strength and come back from train, after taking a few more pictures and running the extra kilometer or so to the more convenient train line (in terms of frequency of direct trains), and get lunch.

Possible cake source 

After a few hours break, I went out again the in evening and ran 1+ hours around Harajuku. It was a surprisingly comfortable run. I did an easy counterclockwise run around the Jinguumae east loop on the way and managed to get the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama loop clockwise correct without having to look it up. Also did some recon along Omotesandou and found another café worth adding, so I'm still fiddling with the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama--Shibuya loop. Also, although the current café in Gyre doesn't rate inclusion by itself, they are scheduled to get a bean-to-bar chocolate shop next month in time for Valentines Day, which is a better step toward the loss of the cake and bread shops that used to be in the basement.

L'Avenue (Kobe): Cache Cache, Lady, and Segur

Only my third post of Kobe cake here. I really don't visit enough, I know. This time I got to what I think of as the best shop, although I was not as strongly impressed this time, so we'll see. Still, what a great webpage: they show all the individual cakes with both the Japanese and Western (mostly French) names with really nice pictures.

The best cake, I thought, was the Cache Cache, which is actually a series of cakes around the Kobe area, Kobe Originals, where they all try to create something original on the theme, in this case hiding various ingredients. This has a pistachio tart base (a pretty strong one) with fig in it, but on top it is more like a mont-blanc, so chestnut, vanilla cream and accented with white chocolate. It seemed excellent (all evaluations based on half a piece).

Lady was actually the first one I had, which is mascarpone (cheese) mousse over strawberry flavored center and a little pistachio biscuit. It was good but not very interesting to me, since I'm not that interested in strawberry flavor and in general it is quite mild.



The last one, called Segur, was Bretagne salt caramel in a milk chocolate tart. It was definitely good and met my sweet tooth. If I judged more on appearance, then perhaps I would rate it better but I really don't cake what cakes look like beyond what it reflects about the construction. Fortunately, my foot had finally stopped hurting (I hadn't been running through Sunday, but still did more walking than I would just commuting to work).

Lindt: Montreux

Got a second cake from Lindt, in North Aoyama and then traced Omotesandou Doori on the older route minus a loop and missing one turn and then made a second try in the future Tougou Shrine and SDA Tokyo Central Church neighborhood. The shrine is fine, but without backtracking, there's no avoiding crowds visiting the church because it's behind the Meiji Doori Omotesandou intersection, which is usually going to be too crowded fro running. I started running faster than recently but of course was slowed down in Harajuku carring cake. I walked the last 800 m or so, as I had already run 61 minutes.

The cake was Montreux, which is a pecan brownie base with a layer of caramel chocolate mousse (though a pretty thick one) with mascarpone cheese flavored with vanilla. The vanilla cheese part is definitely good, but the rest drags it down. Not sure that a brownie is every going to work for me as a cake base, but this certainly does. I'm going to be generous and say it was at least good (rather than just okay), but there's no huge hurry for the third cake.

Pierre Hermé: Mille-feuille Céleste

Did another trip to Isetan for Pierre Hermé and got another cake from these months theme, Mille-feuille Céleste. Except for the mille-feuille pastry, this was not so different from the cheesecake, with a layer of strawberry and rhubarb compote and passion fruit as the other flavor. This worked less well for me than the cheesecake and was only good. I'll probably give up on this month's theme and wait for next month, which I planned to do even before having this, since I've got a number of places I want to hit again this month, both at Isetan, as visiting shops, and the other two recent cake shop promotions, as well as a number of new places (though nothing I have high hopes for).

The run was my neighborhood course through what was left of the southwest Yotsuya course from Tuesday. I remembered it all mostly fine (I did take a parallel road on one section. As I mentioned yesterday, I ready to rearrange this to stop prioritizing avoiding overlap and also to avoid tiny back alleys where it seems a little dangerous to run (just from tripping over things) and obnoxious to anyone living right there. I'm just going to assume that I ran about 8 km at 8 km/h rather than bother trying to measure the convoluted course.

Pierre Hermé: Mille-feuille Infiniment Vanille

Felt better today than earlier in the week, so I'm more optimistic. First, I went to Isetan Pierre Hermé and got the Mille-feuille Infiniment Vanille. For running, I did the latest version of my Central-East Sendagaya neighborhood course (okay, I'm lying: I deviated to a parallel road at one point, which added 25 meters, but it wasn't a place I needed practice on). I was slower than I expected, even with more pauses than usual for maneuvering cars and the amount of stairs and slopes: 8 km/h. I only ran about 7 km, but I feel I can raise and the speed tomorrow. I guess I'll try to hit the Marunouchi/Ginza area south of Tokyo Station, but Pierre Hermé doesn't change their line up until next Tuesday and JPH is also showing no changes on their home page, so it might be too early to do the rounds to find out what the new cakes are for December.

The Mille-feuille Infiniment Vanille was reliably delicious, especially after recent experience but they are dependable that way, which is why I rate them highly for a place for new cakes. I'll call this one Excellent, though that might be overly based on my preference for mille-feuille cakes.

Frédéric Cassel: Turin

Yesterday, I just had a croissant from Pierre Hermé, from the Omotesando main shop. It was good but expensive and not that special. It was soft versus crispy in a buttery way rather than a dry fluffy way, to explain its position among the spectrum of croissant types. That's the second non-cake pastry that I've had from them that was nothing special, so I should probably steer clear of them for those types of things. On the plus side, they had all three of the advertised new cakes, whereas Isetan had only one by the time I could get there. The running was relatively fast, 10 km/h going and 9 km/h coming back for a total of 8 km (a couple of those being from going by way of near Shinjuku Station, because I had somewhere else to visit). Interestingly, the run down Meiji Avenue between Shinjuku Station and Harajuku Station was not that congested, though I still got sort of lost when I turned on the back streets to cross over to Aoyama Street, and it's not as flat back in there as I expect.

Today, the run was to Ginza and back (with a stop at the grocery). It was 9 km total, not including walking under Ginza, but only 8 or 9 km/h. It was a little hot and definitely humid, as there was some light rain, especially going out. (If there is steady rain, the paper bag or even just its handle would not survive). Not sure what the real name of what I got was. I'm going with Turin (updated, based on JPH's spelling of one of their chestnut cakes). It's from Frédéric Cassel, who I'm almost caught up on (though, I'm not sure what I'll do then, since most of the other places I need to go are not available weekdays). it's chestnut cream and mascarpone cheese (which features heavily in a hot of their stuff). Unfortunately, it's not very exciting and of course expensive, but definitely good. On the plus side, their Mont-blanc Jewel is back, so I'll probably be doing my next cake-off with that.

Pierre Hermé [Aoyama] (Heaven)

No running Thursday or Friday. Thursday, I enjoyed some cake, though not the fresh kind, though similar. This was Chiboust Vanille Fromage from Konditorei Kobe, brought from Kobe. I like chiboust and good vanille, as well as cheese cake, so this was definitely good.

Friday, we went to the Omotesando (the station)/ Aoyama (the road and official location)/Jingumae (actual address) Pierre Hermé. The Dessert Jasmine [Updated, from latest Facebook post] is financier on the bottom, cut into one centimeter intervals and layered, to create a solid but still easily eatable base, on top of which is a mango gelatin flavored with grapefruit. Then jasmine-flavored mascarpone cheese, topped with meringue leafs. On the plate are mango sauce and grapefruit gelatin. This was definitely excellent and definitely greater than the sum of its parts/ingredients. I'm not that into grapefruit, but it cuts through the mango, which can be overly thick, and adds a complementary citrus taste, and it would not have occurred to me to use financier as the base for a fresh-cake-like dessert or how to do that well, so now I know.

The other dessert is easy to get the name of because it's popular and featured on the official Facebook page. It ends up looking like my photo, but starts as a chocolate ball (well, two chocolate domes put together) and they pour hot chocolate sauce on it so that it melts and collapses. Ideally, one would take video to display this, but I can barely manage to frame a photo (though at least the phone camera does better with the focus). It's called Sensation Plaisir Sucré, and is filled with ice cream and hazelnut praliné. Some solid chocolate survives, but not a lot. It's very rich and definitely good for a chocolate and nut lover, though ice cream is never high on the list of things I want in my dessert, regardless of the season, so I was still happier with my fruity cake.

Le R Cinq (ルエールサンク): Mascar Fraise (マスカルフレーズ）

Wednesday night, I visited Le R Cinq (ルエールサンク) and got the Mascar Fraise (マスカルフレーズ, 540 yen）. It was good (mascarpone) cheese and good strawberry filling, which went well together, so it was good cake. Maybe it's a good shop, but they only had two things recognizable as cake　（the other was green tea, I think), three or four tart-like pieces, that were fancy enough, but at least half a dozen things in glasses ("verrines" I suppose), so not really my kind of place, or I need to learn to appreciate verrines. I'd be interested in going early, to see what their baked goods are, since they open at 8:00, but it's not my side of town. Of course, I could get up early and go by train, but I'm not that interested.

There was also running, today, but it was a training run, which did not take long, and I did not buy cake, so I'm now caught up on reporting cake. As usual, the training run as on the Meiji Gingu Gaien course, and was just 4 km total, 1.225 of that at 11 km/h in four segment, interspersed by 9 km/h running and otherwise mostly it was at 10 km/h. Because of the short run, no cake buying, and no overtime work, I had time to catch up on dishes and then make canelés. Still working out how to get them right, in terms of how much butter to use in the silicone molds for the regular-size ones. This time I used 25% less and held some back to brush on afterward, to see how that works, and they came out of the mold about as well as last time (one stuck), and I baked them less and they still seem baked enough (though less baked), I'm trying to see if I can get the outsides less dry. Of course, if I want them glossy, I'll have to think seriously about using beeswax.

Frédéric Cassel: P'tite Merveille Caramel,

Took a long run along the Tokyo History and Culture courses, starting with the Gaien Walk of the Shinjuku course and continuing on along the Outer Moat Walk to Akasaka, from which I followed the Akasaka Sanno Walk to where it meets the Marunouchi Past and Present Walk, which I jumped off to transfer to the Sukiyabashi Walk to Ginza. Total, that's about 9 km at nearly 9 km/h.

At Frédéric Cassel at Ginza Mitsukoshi, I got the P'tite Merveille Caramel (according to a French Facebook post) for 648 yen. The bottom is merigue, on top of which is caramel mascarpone cheese cream, then mango and passion fruit. topped by "biscuit-like" caramel type chocolate. It's very good, and not like most cakes, so I'm going to say it's great. Maybe I'll get tired of it if they do another version next month (didn't get to last month's yuzu version), for for now that will be my choice.





The end of the run was just 3.4 to grocer, and was a slower 8 km/h, as I was tired at the beginning.

Not sure when I'll get my next run in, as I'm busy this weekend. Probably something Sunday night, but I hope to get cake before then.

Au Bon Vieux Temps, Zephyr

Cycled to Au Bon Vieux Temps for cake again. This time I got Zephyr, which was 702 yen. The top is chocolate cream with alcohol, which both seem to be a specialties of theirs. The bottom is a steamed/baked mascarpone cheese and brown sugar (had to look up "vergeoise" from the Japanese phonetic French) cheesecake, which was almost nutty in texture. This cake is excellent, so I chose well again. That chocolate stick should be on top, though.

Being greedy, I continued on to Limevert, because I hadn't forgotten that they had a bostock (for 380 yen), but it wasn't really the type I like. I like double-baked, somewhat thick, but this was thin and rum-soaked with lots of sliced almonds (a large amount of almonds slid off even before I got it; it's not very stable ). It was still good.

Didn't do a good job of staying on the best path, so it ended up being 34 km of cycling, which is a couple more than I planned. My leg seems okay, but now my arm isn't too happy, so I may need to limit that.

I should mention sometime that I've had the Venezuelan Noir chocolate from Henri le Roux (I've given up on photographing them), and it was excellent, like their other chocolates. Now I want to get to Tokyo midtown to try the their new Kouign Amann flavor, lime.