Origines Cacao, Mille-Feuille Tatin

From the last great new cake, Origines Cacao is challenging shops two levels about its shop group, so I was back again this week. This time I went with the Mille-Feuille Tatin. But mille-feuille cakes are tricky constructions at the best of times, so putting a heavy tatin on top isn't the greatest idea, I think. Your only choice is toe separate the two halves, which is reasonable, but a tatin is pretty mild by itself and this cream-filled base doesn't really add much (in hindsight, I probably should have raised the temperature of both parts before eating). Still, good, though and still challenging the quite superb group, so it remains a top priority for new cakes: I expect I'll be back there next Wednesday.

Long run to Frédéric Cassel for Mille-Feuille Caramel Pomme

Took the Shinjuku History and Culture course from the beginning of the Gaien Walk to as far as Akasaka Mitsuke along the Outer Moat Walk. I noticed that the on-site guide marker map indicates the Outer Moat Walk should climb up to the footpath parallel to the road after St. Ignatius Catholic Church, so I did. Also, running on the north side in front of Hotel New Otani causes a lot of delay from the stop lights, so I finally switched to the south side. Both changes made to the map. From there, I ran to cross Inner Moat Road and then did the imperial moat course one full lap and then to Hibiya. There was a running event of some kind going on, so people were standing with signs at the kilometer mark points (I joined just before the 4 kilometer point and the woman of the couple in front of me was surprised that the person holding the sign and cheering people to not give up was her mother), though it was only obvious that a few people were obviously participating (beyond the few hundred at the start/end point). Rather than go all the way to Ginza running, I decided to just stop at Hibiya and take the subway tunnels to Ginza Mitsukoshi (which is about 700 m).

The cake was the Mille-Feuille Caramel Pomme (ミルフィユキャラメルポム, 864 yen), which is a fairly normal mille-feuille with a layer of apple in the middle and some caramel taste. It was definitely good, but I can't call it excellent: I'm not interested in having it again, and also I didn't appreciate that the apple was surrounded by layers of sponge cake. In mile-feuille? There might be structural reasons why it could not have been surrounded by mille-feuille (puff) pastry, for example, or caramelized almond slices, which I would like, since keeping the layers from sliding was obviously an issue, but it just seemed wrong to me, even though it was too thin really to affect the texture much more than the apple already did.

Took the short route back to Lawson 100. Total, I ran 16.4 km, all three parts averaging 9 km/h. I'm feeling good. Maybe this week, I'll finally use up my budget enough to expand it for the first time in three weeks. It's going to get colder tomorrow, but I'd like to get over to Viron, with a backup in Tokyu Plaza (Ginza), which will be another 11 km, so I'll only have 6 km left for Friday night, so I'll probably go to Tokyo Midtown, not find anything new, and come back and eat homemade canele or macarons, which I'll be doing Saturday anyway, since I plan to get this year's flu shot.

Saturday: Frédéric Cassel: Tarte Ruby Roman and Mille Feuille Vanillle

Walked to Ginza, 1 km at 5.5 km/h and 4 km at 5 km/h. Went to Frédéric Cassel and could get both the Tarte Ruby Roman (there just thru Monday for a Ginza Mitsukoshi fair) for 1080 yen and their frequent sell-out Mille Feuille Vanillle (I certainly have not seen it recently at night, if ever before) for the usual 777 yen.

Ruby Roman is, or at least was, the most expensive grape in the world. Certainly, the tart was excellent and interesting for a fruit tart. I didn't realize that it was grape when I bought it, thinking this was some strange kind of chestnut.

The mille feuille was also excellent, and really big, for example, compared to their special "inspiration" Mexican vanilla finger mille feuille. Like that one, though, this is vanilla cream but not a custard. Since I'm tired of custard at the moment, I was fine with that.

Frédéric Cassel: Mille-feuille Vanille Mexico

No surprise, that last weekend was probably too much and I was sorer than I wanted to be, so rested yesterday and tried to keep it slower: 5.5 km/h for 5 km out (then walking underground), and 5 km/h for 3.8 km coming back (didn't count after the supermarket).

The cake was, as planned, I got the Mille-feuille Vanille Mexico from Frédéric Cassel at Ginza Mitsukoshi for 777 yen. It's vanilla mascarpone cream in their standard mille-feuille form, and though I always want a stronger vanilla taste, this was creamy and delicious mille feille, and ultimately great: I want it again.

Yesterday, I had another chocolate from Henri le Roux, the Noisetine Noir, which was excellent.

Sadaharu Aoki: Mille-feuille Vanille

Today, I ran down to Tokyo Midtown, at a 2-min running, 1-min walking, 7-8 min/km pace. My goal was to get a new flavor of kouign amann at Henri le Roux, but no change. I'll try again in a couple weeks, since I don't know their schedule. Instead, I got the Mille-feuille Vanille from Sadaharu Aoki, since I can't get it at Isetan. It's not cheap, of course, being 780 yen, and it was not really that great. It was good. It's three layers of pastry and two layers of pastry cream with no fruit. There were also pastry flakes on the side, but that's okay. The top was a hard caramel, whereas I would prefer something softer, but it doesn't make it that much more difficult to eat than it already is. As I said, it was good, but not better than that, so I am dropping them from my Great Shop list, which is down to just five: Henri le Roux, which is perfectly safe because they always have the same four cakes; Frédéric Cassel, which is one good cake from dropping off, though I've never had anything that wasn't at least excellent, but I'll want another great cake eventually to keep them; Paris S'éveille, which is in a better position as far as number of great cakes, if not physically convenient; Dalloyau, which is better on both counts; and finally Jean-Paul Hévin, which is really the one to beat and has always been my favorite.

Running was okay, but the leg is not perfect (although much better than the arm, which is the limiting factor still even in running), so I'll stick to the schedule. I got 19 km this week, 2 km at a faster 6'10'' to 7'/km pace, so next week (starting tomorrow), I want 27 km, 6 km of the faster pace. I'll also switch to about 4-min running and 1-min walking

12.5 km to Aux Bacchanales and back for Mille Feuille

Did another Ginza run to Aux Bacchanales (with two back-ups ready in mind), which actually had several cakes (all familiar). It was 6.6 km there and 5.9 km back and I ran exactly the same time for both, within .04 s of each other, which is weird, but I suppose not that weird, since the numbers aren't random. I decided to give up on measuring small distance (on the order of 1 km) when I'm not on a track: too time consuming. Instead, I just have to run the hilly parts faster or make up time elsewhere. The outbound was fast and the return was moderate, both of which I'm happy with. I expect to rest (well, not really; actually, I have an exhaustingly lot of things planned) the next couple days and then I'm taking Monday off to run (as well as other things, perhaps), and then rest up to two days after that, since my knee is still not happy, but only to a certain extent (it hates walking the most, especially walking after running, and the beginning of running, but doesn't get worse and hasn't bothered me at home).

The cake was Mille Feuille for 465 yen. Yeah, it's not an expensive place, even in Ginza. This mille feuille has raspberries, which is a first for me I think. I like mille feuille and I liked this one. It was good, but I can't say that it was better than that, so calling Aux Bacchanales excellent rather than great probably is fair and I'll update the map.

Cycling: Fraoula, Paris S'éveille, and Bigarreaux

Since I ran long yesterday, just leisurely cycling (and it would be more leisurely if I had a bicycle better geared for slopes).

I started with Bigarreaux, since they open at 9 am, and got the Mille Feuille (for 500 yen). It's a standard cake, so I'm not sure how to tell whether it is great, but I like it and had no complaints. They use 100% Viron Co. flour and fermented butter for the crust. The display-case picture looks better than the other one I took outside, so I'll use it. I'm running out of things to get from there.

Next was Paris S'eveille (where there is a sign telling you no photographs of the display case), where I am definitely not running out things, certainly not things to blog about. This Theatre is two kinds of mousse inside: milk chocolate and bitter chocolate. This was great, although I'm not that into milk chocolate. The balance seemed okay, but heavy on the milk. It would probably be better in colder weather. This is not a cheap place: it was something like 620, or maybe 670 with tax. They have people lining up, so they can charge high, although their location is no doubt more expensive than the other two today and most places outside of those in central Tokyo.
Finally, I stopped by Fraoula. This is called Paradis and has a completely unhelpful description on their card. Obviously there is chocolate on top and some browned orange with that. I'll guess Bavarian creme and chocolate mousse of some type for the main layers. I also got the Bostock and confirmed that it was better than Aux Bacchanales'. The moistness is better distributed, I think, rather than having gooey parts and drier parts.