Megan, Tres Leches

Tuesday, I went to Isetan before running and got the Tres Leches, which I had seen over the weekend. I was looking then because I was not sure they had any fresh cake (versus carrot cake or slices of pound cake), but they had this, so this was my aim. On Monday, which was a holiday, so presumable they had sold more by as late as I was there, they hadn't had it, I think, but they also had their strawberry (short)cake, which I've had before. 

As the name says, this is a pretty milky cake, which worried me a little bit, but it was good. However, half would have been enough, because there really isn't enough going on there that I need a full piece.

With two excellent and two good cakes, there's a good chance they'll get cut from the quite fine group, as that's the bottom now and if I can find 8 more shops with a third (of four) excellent cake, then I'll drop the bottom. It remains to be seen. There are 20 shops I haven't tried again, assuming none of them have gone out of business, and I've got three shops with one excellent cake down in the fine group that could move up with a second one, which I'll prioritize getting to once I finish reviewing exceptional and quite fine ones. 

I'll mention that the running was more brutal on my left knee than the previous day. Squats seem to help the most, I'm discovering, but it's continued through Thursday, when I did a shorter run with more frequent stops for squats. Friday, I'll take a rest so I can try to make it to Jiyuugaoka again sourcing for the first fifth-round cake-off.

Pierre Gagnaire, Mousse au Chocolat au Lait

Sunday, I didn't feel a need to get up early. Actually, I didn't get out until about 10 am. My goal was Pierre Gagnaire, but I started southwest rather than southeast because I wanted to try to get something from an unsampled shop over in the Omote-Sandou west area for bread. Went by Neko Neko Cheesecake, which I should sample for cake now that's not Neko Neko Shokupan, so maybe the gourmet sliced bread boom has faded. Actually, I had two targets for bread along Aoyama-doori, though I ended up getting a Croissant au Chocolat instead one of them, the bakery counter at a grocery store, Kinokuniya International, which has a super slow checkout line because of the extensive packing and general carefulness. The pastry was good, but it's a relief that it wasn't better, giving me a reason to go back. Some day I should see what the selection of chocolate bars is there.

I'm two cakes behind on Pierre Gagnaire because their line-up is tiny and rarely changed, and actually didn't even include both posted cakes, at least not that I ever saw, and I even asked once. Now they had one different cake I've had before, a couple standards, and two cakes new to me. I went with the Mousse au Chocolat au Lait (can't guarantee the auxiliaries), which is milk chocolate mousse in a hard shell. I can tell from the beginning that it was definitely good, as good as any milk chocolate mousse I've had, as far as I can remember, but even with just one cake, a cup of tea wasn't sufficient to get me all the way through this. I know that I've saturated on plain chocolate mousse even years ago, so I should have prepared more. I guess I need to start buying milk for cake, instead of relying only on tea. As I said, it was definitely good, but there was more than enough for me, at least without something varying it. 

In the afternoon, I was back around JR Harajuku Sta. to see what Aux Bacchanales might be like on a weekday (no line), what's in Eataly (short line and a couple brands of chocolates, as well as cookies), and where the heck the elevator that gets you to the Shiseido Parlor (elevators on the lower floors only cover the lower floors). Also, Trip Port Sweets seems to be reorganizing itself (there were people in there discussing something and the upper floors of the building are closed now, though maybe they were always closed).

 

Jean-Paul Hévin: Bûchette Lichen

I'm way behind, but here goes. By last Wednesday, I had noticed that the individual versions of Jean-Paul Hévin's Christmas cakes were available, so I went hunting. I tried Isetan first, where there was a line (not necessarily for cake), but when I got a chance to ask, I found out that they were sold out, so I left. It was still early enough for me to go by bicycle to the Marunouchi shop, where they didn't have either and I didn't ask, so I went to Ginza Mitsukoshi, where they had both, not too much to my surprise (they are never as busy there). I went with Bûchette Lichen first because they only had one compared to several of the other, so I figured next time the other would still be easier to get, which would turn out to be true.

There is a full-sized version that has a fuller explanation of the layers, so I'm going to assume that they are the same, since the pictures match. The top (and sides of the big cake) is Venezuelan chocolate mousse, then Ethiopian café au lait mousse, a chestnut and almond biscuit, a chocolate and marzipan biscuit, and a cinnamon sablé base. So a high proportion of hard biscuit-type things, flour-less. The problem is the coffee, but I knew that going in. I really like this harder, drier cake as a change and I could accept the café au lait as an interesting flavor and enjoy it. There wasn't even a coffee aftertaste problem for me this time. However, it still left a burning feeling in my stomach, if not my mouth, so I still need to avoid coffee and have to rate it as only excellent.

Besides the bicycling, I did my indoor non-weights workout, which was enough.

Tadashi Yanagi: Douceur d'Été

Decided to try for Tadashi Yanagi agian by going on the correct day to Shinjuku Takashimaya. This is a second cake, at least in the current reporting, and a new cake, so definitely not one I had pre-blog: Douceur d'Été ("sweet of the summer", I assume) this time, which is a harmony of lemon cream and milky cream (whatever that is; sounds awful but wasn't) several caramelized hazelnuts inside and decaration including chocolate and almond slices. Lemon cream can be very nice, if fairly intense, which this was and the hazelnuts were a nice surprice. So now I have two shops that I've had two excellent cakes from that deserve a try-out for the excellent shop list, which has openings, not even including a couple that probably should be demoted.

Cycling, I visted Bien-être again and found that the pistachio chiboust that I saw just over a week ago and wanted for a cake-off tomorrow has already evolved into another cake. Like last time, the window for this cake was very small. I'm disappointed, but wanted new cakes from them, so I'll get there again soon anyway. Still need to figure out what the cake-off will be instead.

Del'Immo (Akasaka): Royal Milk Tea

Went for a short run to conserve my budget, but have since found out that my first choice for tomorrow, Yu Sasage, is closed. The second choice was Tron Coni, also closed. Fine, I'll go to La Glycine, which had its summer vacation last week.

Anyway, I also went short today because I'm adding running (broadly speaking). I went only 5.8 km, 1.9 km of it "running", all at about 6 km/h, so really pointlessly slow running, other than to build up slowly. I'm way behind from last weekend of not running or walking much, so I'll aim for 3 km running 7 km/h tomorrow (not sure I have that much control), as well as another 9 km walking comfortably fast. Saturday, I'll try to hit the reopening Yu Sasage, with is more than 20 km round trip, and then Sunday I'll make up whatever deficit I have left (taking Friday night off) to get myself up to 110% of a week ago. I ran last Monday, so I can still head to Ginza next Monday, or save it for a long trip Tuesday (it took so long just to plan tomorrow, I'm not going to figure out Tuesday's target tonight).

Cake! The cake was Royal Milk Tea from Del'Immo (the Akasaka branch) for 580 yen, which is called phonetically "Early Grey" in Japanese, so the counter person had to confirm with me, since apparently she hadn't actually read the English on the cards (just like I didn't bother to read the Japanese). This is majority mousse, with chocolate and earl grey, maybe bottom and top, with a fairly solid chocolate base. I passed up the high-chocolate specialty of the "chef", since I just had chocolate cake, and was rewarded with great (but lighter) cake. Very nice and an excellent shop. The macaron was not bad (they also sell macarons there).