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.

Pariya, Pecannuts Chocolate Shortcake

Finally really got a first cake from a shop in the Omotesando--Harajuku area, Pariya, which is a kind of eat-in deli. They also have a shop in Tokyo Midtown as of maybe a couple years ago. All their cakes are short cakes and bit enough that you could easily share them. I went with the pecan and chocolate, despite a recent complain about nuts slivers in an otherwise soft chocolate cake. This one has reasonably large pieces, all in the center, so you know when you are getting them. This cake is maybe 75% whipped cream, with very little cake, which is fine. I thought the chocolate as reasonable and the nuts were fine. It was good. I'm not sure whether the aftertaste was from nuts, milk cholate, or some unusually sweetener. It had a soft of banana flavor. I didn't care for it, but it wasn't actually nasty or anything. Milk would have probably been a better match for this than tea.  

Good is enough to get on the fine list, so eventually (in some number of years, as it's a really bloated list) I'll be back for a second cake.

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'Éclair de Génie: Chocolat Grand Cru, Caramel Salé, and Vanille Pecan

Wanted cake for two on Wednesday, so I went to Shinjuku Takashimaya. On the way, though, I stopped by Toshi Yoroizuka visiting Isetan and saw that Annya (tart-based rhubarb and red fruit cake) was back, which was useful information for the next cake-off (second round, loser's).

For Takashimaya, I didn't check which shops were available at the cafeteria-style patisserie counter, so I wasn't surprised when the ones that I wanted were not there (just need to remember not to go on Wednesday again). I selected instead L'Éclair de Génie from among by backups, and got the Chocolat Grand Cru, Caramel Salé, and Vanille Pecan. These were all good, so I wasn't disappointed, but not exciting, so I probably won't be back again.

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.

Jean-Paul Hévin: Goa

I'm behind so, the cake is from Wednesday. I went first to Jean-Paul Hévin at Isetan, where they have Goa from this month, which I don't think I've ever had. Backing up, Tuesday, I tried to do a 21 km run but got lost trying to save time and once I figured out where I was and what I needed to do to get on track, I didn't have the time or energy to make up for it, so I decided to head home and make it a 16 km run (at about 9 km/h average), though I stopped at Dalloyau and got a Pain au Chocolat, which despite the late hour and the poor conditions of me eating it (in a park), was still definitely excellent. This is basically like a very loose croissant, in the sense of being flaky all the way through rather than being bread-like on the inside, in texture and taste, despite the difference in shape, with line of chocolate down the axis.

The run for Wednesday was up to Yasukuni Avenue to a closed shop (I forgot and hadn't checked their closed day) and then down to Tokyo Midtown, where I checked what special cakes Sadaharu Aoki might have there, though I had also intended to check Toshi Yoroizuka, but forgot. Total, it was about 8 km again at 9 km/h. I definitely need to change my running and cake-buying for the long runs so I force myself to rest afterward, but it's hard to balance my different running and cake objectives. Anyway, this week, I needed more rest, but I'm busy Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday, so I'm rested up now.

Goa from Jean-Paul Hévin was great, though I did not come to that conclusion quickly. It's been a while since I evaluated a new cake from them and they are kind of a special case. This cake is chocolate mousse, Darjeeling mousse, yuzu flavored biscuit, and pecan nougatine. My first impression was that it was subtle for my tastes, and so not my favorite from them, but definitely good. As I progressed, it was clearly excellent and I appreciated the difference. Afterward, I decided that it was great, in that I definitely wanted to have it again, which is the real test, and that I would not have as much trouble identifying it as great if I avoided comparing it to other Jean-Paul Hévin cakes. Even so, it really is great even among their and appreciate their variety (though only among chocolate cakes), and wouldn't have trouble choosing them if I could only have cake from one place, though the variety is necessarily spread out over the year, so my cake eating is a little too frequent to be satisfied.

Finally, running, back to Frédéric Cassel for Tarte Chocolat a la Caramélia

No rain, no knee pain, and no cold (I hope), so I ran today!

It's been so long (well, more than a week) that I had forgotten what it feels like, so I went with that and tried running in a way that I knew was different: I ran like a girl. Or at least, I ran like a former girl group (AKB48) member who just started as the third host on a running program that I decided I should watch. She did a marathon 4 years ago but hasn't been running. She was preparing for a 10K (well, or she couldn't be a host), but didn't want to get big muscles on her legs. Actually, that is reasonable, because top long-distance runners don't have thick legs, because that is not necessary or efficient.

So she met a trainer (at the Gaien course, naturally because it's a marked route and there is big open space in the middle for training) who photographed her form and told her that she was taking too big of steps in the sense of the height of her toes. I've heard this before: think of stepping on a tuna can when you run, because you don't want your toes far off the ground when your heel hits. Otherwise, you are putting on the breaks, which uses a lot of muscles for stopping and then restarting. The other thing was lean forward, which they didn't talk about, but showed.

So today I didn't try to pump my legs at all, I just leaned into it and tried to keep then rolling fairly effortlessly. I wasn't sure how far I could do it, so I broke it up before the biggest hill going out to Ginza, but I ended up faster after that point than before, both very fast and almost racing speed on the hill part (it goes back down, of course). In one way, it is effortless, because I'm not trying to go fast at all, I'm just trying to do it at all (I have no basis for comparison running like this). At the last part of that 5.2 km fairly continuous run (there are a couple lights that you can't make at a reasonable speed), I didn't feel tired and was going as fast as I probably went the whole run, but on the other hand puffing very hard. When I stopped at the light just short of Ginza (from which I walked to Ginza Mitsukoshi), then I could feel that I had used some muscles.

Going back, I did 4 km very slow because I was somewhat tired, that kind of running doesn't work with carrying cake and having the weight of my jacket in my backpack, and my left knee called attention to itself at about the same point as my previous run, though not as bad, not increasingly bad, and not hurting during the walk home from the 100 yen shop (although I still iced it for a bit). Also, no headache, so the runny nose I have left is just from pollen and the fact that I woke up 90 minutes early this morning.

The cake was my eighth from Frédéric Cassel, and I'll give the name a try: Tarte Chocolat a la Caramélia for 756 yen. The website leaves off the "Chocolat" that was on the in-store card. This is a baked tart with milk chocolate ganache (and a small amount of pecan pieces) under caramel chocolate ganache cream. It was definitely excellent. I like chocolate tarts and this was a good one.

Homemade brownies with almond powder

Made brownies again, this time with almond powder (50% substituted for flour) rather than almonds I ground myself. Still was moister in the middle than last time I made with just flour and the same pecans. On the web, it says that's what I should expect. They are good, but I think I'll try increasing the temperature or decreasing the height, though a little moisture in the middle is not bad and preferred by some. Not a great picture.

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.