Ryoura, Mille-Feuille Mistral

Finally got back Ryoura a while back for a new cake. I can get their one (available) remaining great cake at Tokyo Midtown, but the selection there is fairly limited so I did a bicycle ride. I wasn't quite as crazy there as last time. They have actually been limiting the number of people inside, but probably I can't remember well. Anyway, even at the main shop, I've pretty much had all their standards already, so it's touch choice. On the grounds that Mille-feuille are a fairly safe choice and I have had one excellent one from there (and one just good), I tried the Mille-feuille Mistral, which is F.Cassel like in having a gelatin layer for the flavor, which honestly I'm not that convince is a good ideal but is a reasonable simple variation. A Japanese source reminds me (not that I probably read in this detail at the time) that its passion fruit and mango mousseline and the gelatin is rhubarb and strawberry, which sounds about right. It was good, but I'm more convinced that gelatin in my mille-feuille is not optimal, but not the worst, as I've found out.

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.

Paris S'éveille, Tarte Rhubarbe Orange

Sunday, I went out to get a new cake from a superb shop, specifically, Tart Rhubarb Orange, or maybe they used French spelling. You aren't allowed to take pictures. The tart seemed to be pistachio.

On the way, I hit a local shop in the Jinguumae/Kita-Aoyama area north of Omote-Sandou Sta., which was actually not that far out from home, though that's why it's a high-priority area. They had a selection of 7 kinds of baked goods. I went with the Matcha Donut. It was good. It was a quite moist (but not wet) cake donut. The other things were similarly vegan pseudo-healthy things. Though the staff was Japanese, when spoke English to me, the website shows a young Euro-looking family of three, and the person behind me was a young white woman, which is a tough market segment in this travel environment. Just because of their selection, and the college-aged English speaking Japanese staff, I wonder whether they are related to the folks to took over the bakery Tournage one running neighborhood loop to the north, who were also doing the vegan baked good things. They had a kitchen, though it's the middle of Tokyo, so it wouldn't be hard to move containers of small baked goods from any of hundreds of shops. Anyway, one shop to visit down, and I found another one I hadn't recorded one building further along (I knew they sound some coffee, as well as whatever their main thing was, but I hadn't noticed the baked goods before).

The tart reminded me of rhubarb pie, which my mother frequently made but I did not appreciate, so it was usually made at the sime time apple pie was made. It was good, but too much of what I'm not interested in. I have no memory already of what running if any I did. It was a lot of walking carrying cake and an umbrella, so probably I didn't.

the whatever spelling they are using. . Actually, I intended to get them from two, but it didn't work out. It was raining, so I went walking with an umbrella.

Frédéric Cassel, Tarte Rouge Printemps

Sunday the 1st was a greedy day, though I have to fit everything nice into the weekend with shops closed during the week. Now, things are starting to open up a little bit and maybe work is occasionally calmer. I started with some Tokyo viennoiserie in the form a visit to Sadaharu Aoki, which is compensating for lack of other things by making more pastries. I had in the past, but not in my review of getting this fresh (that is, not at the end of the day), by getting their Canelé Nature, which I at least haven't labeled before, even if I've posted before.
As I recall, it was excellent. However, I also got something new that fell more or less under the viennoiserie category, since it had certain elements but was not all dry. Actually, the name is actually Paris Viennoiserie on the receipt, but I'm pretty sure that's not what it was called. I need to go back and update this, if they still have it. Unfortunately, it's only good, being not such a greet idea. It is mille-feuille pastry, raspberry filling, and an florentin top, so let's call it Framboise Florentin for now and then forget about it.

For cake, I went to two places, one being Frédéric Cassel. They had three new cakes (to me) and I showed great restraint after some months and only got two of them. The first I ate was a tart, Tarte Rouge Printemps, which is a fruit tart with strawberry and rhubarb as filling on a biscuit that has hibiscus. I'm afraid it's too subtle for me, but it sounds like it should be matched to the right tea. Still, of course it was good, though the strawberry pieces got pretty scattered on the bicycle ride, so that above is a reconstruction.

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).

Pierre Hermé: Paris-Brest Classique, Carré Blanc, and Cheesecake Céleste

New Year's holidays are almost over, so I should catch up, though there was less cake and running than usual. Monday (Dec 30), I ran to Paris S'éveille, where I expected and found two reasonable cake substitutes. One, however, includes coffee gelatin, which I'm pretty sure would not agree with my mouth or stomach, so I'm going to ignore that. The other was Crème Molle, which seems to be a (custard) crème brulée, so I went with that and ate it in the shop (didn't have to wait). It was excellent, as a change, but I'm recording it as "other", not cake or pastry. Future visits will probably be either for cake-offs or pastries, but I'll watch for the rare new cake, since this is a superb shop.

The next actual cake was New Year's Eve, when I visited Pierre Hermé at Isetan to get new cake because of a recent cake-off win.

I was particularly interested in the Paris-Brest Classique, but it was cake for two, so there were two more cakes that I had half of: Carré Blanc and Cheesecake Céleste.

The Paris-Brest was standard, as expected, with choux pastry and praliné cream. Carré Blanc was very fresh tasting, based on mascarpone cheese with I can't remember what kind of herbs and spices--maybe this had ginger, though I'm also thinking something more herb-like. What I do remember was it was not trying to be subtle about the herbs/spices, nor should it, since mascarpone by itself would be quite blank. The cheesecake followed the featured "fetish", céleste, which is strawberry and rhubarb. All three cakes were good, though none of them stood out, so this shop will probably remain a cake-off only visit going forward, as it will probably have to give up its place in the superb category, where it's already had more than it's share of cakes anyway.

Paris S'éveille: Tarte Rhubarbe

I'm calling it: 35 degC is too hot for cake, even by bicycle.

My goal had been to get to Au Bon Vieux Temps, since they won a cake-off a little while back. It's really hot, so I went by bicycle. However, since Paris S'éveille hasn't had any new cakes for a while and it was a new month, I stopped by there. Even if I decided that they are a superb rather than a quite superb cake (looking like the case, but they have the disadvantage that I've had more of their limited-time cakes and their standard cakes are mainly the great ones), I would be one cake behind on them, so kind of a priority. I was still prepared to get a second cake elsewhere, on the grounds of missing a week recently, though I'm ready to call things even now.

In fact, Paris S'éveille had a few new cakes, so I took the one they were particularly recommending, the Tarte Rhubarbe, which is a hard crust type standard shallow fruit tart with flavored whipped cream on top. Not necessarily a bad idea, and certainly pretty, but for me, whipped cream and fruit rarely works, even though that's considered a pretty standard combination (such as in most Japanese "short cakes", which a recent Japanese NHK program backed me up on as having a silly name since they lack short cake, which is biscuit-like cake made with shortening, since the Japanese definition is sponge cake and whipped cream). Good tart but not that interesting to me. Of course, not being 35 degC would have been better, but probably wouldn't have changed my evaluation, bested on previous experience with this type of tart. Not the best photo, but I wanted to eat before the cream died in the heat.

At this point, I decided that it was too hot for eating cake, or carry cake in a box dangling in a bag from my handlebars, or even in fact for cycling, really, so I headed home. Until I realized that I wanted to check the line-up at L'abricotier, which was way too far north, but I went and confirmed that they still have Sicilien Figue anyway, because I'm obsessive compulsive like that, so that's want I want next weekend for the cake-off. Then I convinced myself that I should go some place local and get something that I can't get on a weekday, so I was off too far back south, though at least I talked myself down to 365 Jours, which is a apparently super-popular bakery west of Yoyogi Park (closer at least than Daikanyama). Fortunately, the line was not out the door (though there were instructions for how the line should fold if it came to that), but it still took a while to get a Canelé. I also got photos of the shop and of 15°C (not that far way; interesting number theme around). Not sure about After Hours around the corner, which is apparently on vacation until next month. The canelé was good, as expected. The shop is mostly little breads, with the only other pastries a croissant and essentially a chocolate croissant.

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: Cheesecake Céleste

Made another visit to Pierre Hermé, who started selling their next theme (though they still have some of the previous one), which is Céleste. I got the Cheesecake Céleste, since it had been a while since I had tried one of their cheesecakes and some of the have been excellent or great.

For running, I went down to my farthest neighborhood that I've planned and tried and made the second attempt, after considerable changes. I wasn't perfect, but it went pretty good, as far as following the planned course checking the map as little as possible. I took some pictures, now that a new building showed what it could do with all that spaces in front of it (it's a media company, I think): Christmas Circus. Totally secure Christmas is popular this time of year, pretty much straight from Halloween, though there is overlap with fall leaf viewing, which we're just seeing the end of in central Japan. Note that the building behind the tree is next door, not the building in front of the tree.

The cake was definitely good. I'll even call it excellent. It's got a lot going on, from a sablé base, biscuit infused with passion fruit and a harmony of strawberry and rhubarb.

Éclat des Jours: Odile

Did my fourth run to Éclat des Jours, so I'm starting to learn the tricks, like run fast enough after being stopped at a light to get through two lights but don't waste energy on the third unless there are three close together, because it's the main road and I cannot run as fast as a car to make timed lights. Also, I may have run more "Don't walks", just because there was no one coming and only a sort way to cross.

Still, I was a little surprised to come in under 1 hour of running for the first time, which means an average speed when running of around 11 km/h. Even so, it was slim pickings on a Friday night, so I don't expect to repeat this run on another Friday (unless I'm in the same situation of being busy on a Saturday). Back, I just barely kept around 9 km/h and probably missed a lot of second lights.

The cake was Odile (alternatives were a coffee-flavored cake and black forest chocolate cake, which has cherries), which is a cream cheese sandwich (I didn't check, but another blogger wrote "speculass", which is a kind of spice cookie, in the same sense as gingerbread) with rhubarb sauce. I passed it up until now, but I've had good look with rhubarb, so I got it and ran it home.

Of course, it is a mild cake, but very nice, and the sauce balances the slight acidity of the cream cheese well. It was excellent, though that may be my bias for this shop speaking.

Speaking of bias and full disclosure, technically, I received another cake that day, but it's not from a place I respect: it's from P. Frips. This is mostly a tart place, and it's cheap and convenient, and even has an outdoor table on the street in front of the park, but I had a tart I didn't think was fresh and quit them before starting this blog. For free "cake", it's perfectly reasonable, and actually, there was a selection, so I chose their one actual cake, Gateau Chocolat. It's soft and characterless (but consistent in texture) and the whipped cream was perhaps not enough to give much taste, but the strawberries were sufficiently fresh, so maybe I should be less suspicious of them. Still, only okay, so I regret eating it other then confirming that I should pass on even free cake from there. What can I say, I'm a cake snob. 

Sunday: Jean-Paul Hévin (Isetan chocolate bar)

Catching up on my reporting (so I can get something new, after  walking there), I went to the Jean-Paul Hévin chocolate bar at Isetan. We got one cake, the Bergam for 699 yen, and one "ice", Glace Pilée au Chocolat Rhubarbe Mangue for 1388 yen.

The cake Bergamot is orange-flavored chocolate mousse with a little orange Bavarian cream. There are also some ganache and crunchy bit biscuit toward the bottom. The orange just blends with the chocolate, I couldn't really taste it to identify it, though there is a fruitiness. This, finally, is a great cake. I can look forward to having it again.

Ice deserts like Glace Pilée au Chocolat Rhubarbe Mangue I don't get. I don't really even like chocolate ice cream any more, I find, though I would prefer that to "ice". It's chocolate favor with with mango and rhubarbe (though I didn't notice the latter). There is some gummy stuff in there too, which I don't know what it was. It was not really bad, but for me, only okay. Not something I would ever order myself.

Avranches Guesnay: Tarte Rhubarbe Fraise

Jogged about half of the long way (to hit a couple Bookoffs, where I bought one cheap sweets making book) to Avranches Guesnay, where I got Tarte Rhubarbe Fraise for 486 yen. I had noticed before the one cake I from Coin Vert was also here, but I noticed today that the Fortissima from Coin Vert is also here, and got a little worried that I was overlapping, that these were really the same cakes. When I got home, I found a blog that pointed out that they were happy to see the rhubarbe tart at Avranches Guesnay after seeing it at Le Coin Vert, so I researched further and found that the Patissier of the former worked at Coin Vert until last year. I'll assume that coworkers have taken over at Coin Vert and even if the recipes are the same, the person actually making them is different. The actual tart was quite good, so I'm going to say it's excellent. It's very pastry like, at least the crumble crust kind, not flaky crust. The topping is very marshmallow-like, which was not what I expected or would choose, but then I can't really say that it's a good season for meringue. It was fine, though, so I won't avoid this topping, though I don't need to seek it out, either.

The running was 1 min walking/1 min jogging again. My initial thought was just 10 repetitions (leaving 10 more Monday or Tuesday) and walk from there, since I did have soreness, although I'm not sure that it's exactly where I was having the most problems before. Things were going fine, though, so I just kept going and did 20 repetitions, which I'll call 2.5 km of running (total walking then was maybe 8 km, not counting the few kilometers walking in the afternoon for shopping), so I made the week's goal of 5 km. I'll see how I am tomorrow to see whether I want to add to the week's total. My priority places are in or near Ginza, so that will be a similar distance, which I can make walking even without running, assuming I don't have to work late.

On the homemade front, I have the usual problem of wanting to bake more than I can process the calories for. Finished off the creme brulée frosting today (I was a little worried about it sitting around too long, since it has egg yoke, but the scalding caramel syrup might might have cooked it enough that it was not a big problem) without making more cake, but I still have an egg yoke left over from yesterday's failed (but edible) macarons, so I'll probably separate another egg and make two yokes' work of canelé and use the egg white for something this week. Or now I'm thinking I should try to use the egg yoke in creme brulée again (which might still be a bad idea because of the egg, this time measuring the syrup temperature so that I'll actually know what I'm doing, even if the instructions seem a little vague: I'm supposed to heat it to 121 deg C, but then am I supposed to hold it there or is it done? That is hot enough to caramelize sugar, so I suppose I'm done, but I'll have to try it and see what happens.

Pierre Hermé: Céleste

After yesterday's disappoint, I went to Pierre Hermé at Isetan. Probably I should finish off trying their regular cakes, since there will always be a new "fetish" of the month, but this month's sounded good, so I went with the signature one, the Céleste for 756 yen. This is a sablé base with strawberry and rhubarb confit (basically strawberry slices in sauce). Next up is mascarpone cream flavored with passion fruit, meringue on top, and a whole strawberry. It was definitely excellent cake, although it was not so great that I won't be able to resist sampling the other cakes in this series and visit other shops. No doubt, there will be something good next month as well, if I make it over there again.

But I skipped the running: as planned, despite knee discomfort, I ran. Not sure if that was bad or not: I get discomfort from sitting at my desk, or from my commuting walk, but less than before, I think. At some point, it is not clear what will make things better. I only ran 1 km, in 7'20'' and it does not seem worse than before, but that's been the case for some time. I'll see how things are through tomorrow night.

Blondir: Tentation

Ran again today. My left knee was still not happy, but it was not happy at the beginning after a day of office work, so I ran anyway and it didn't get any worse, nor is the discomfort where I was having trouble initially there. This run was under 7 min/km, so a little faster than I intended and went 3.9 km, which was a little farther than I intended but still okay: still only 7 km in three days, so I'm on track for 15 km this week.

Since there was a new visiting shop at Isetan, I went there first and got Tentation (?) for 518 yen. At first, I thought it was pretty good, but my opinion faded afterward. It's rhubarb I think (the website is pretty useless and does not even have store hours, nor does the business card they were handing out: I think they just moved), with pistachio cake underneath maybe, although the sweet red fruit taste dominated and the texture was okay for mousse on the top and a soft bottom (it's leaning toward the camera, but it was that way when they gave it too me). Ultimately, I'm less satisfied than with a seven-eleven donut, but I'm going to stick with my average impression, which is it is just good. Maybe it is not fair, when I like chocolate and nuts, but I had a Great rhubarb cake from Toshi Yoroizuka, which was what was on my mind when I picked it.

22 km to R Okusawa: Rouge and Mazetto

I ran to (Patisserie) R Okusawa today. The run was okay, but I cracked my ipod screen, so that's three things broken in not more more than a week. (sigh)

The river part between Hiroo and Ebisu, C-D (or the hook around Ebisu Station, D-E, for that matter) was no so great, so I'll try not o use that again. Following the river and then the northwest branch of the green promenade to Ring Road 7 was fine. Actually, I checked and it continues to Umegaoka and beyond, so maybe I'll do that part next for the 24-mile run. The endpont will be closer too, unless I change it.

So R Okusawa: not so great. The Rouge was 490, as you see, and was white cheese (pretty tasteless) with a layer of berry gelatin. There were also a couple fruity disks inside, but whether they were cheese mousse, as claimed, or more gelatin there, I could not tell. If I were richer and had not run 22 km and in need of the calories (although I had 480 ml of yogurt drink), then I would not have finished it. Not that it was nasty (besides the outer berry gelatin), but it did not have anything good going for it except some fresh fruit.

The second one seemed to be Le Mazetto, although with reflection, it is hard to read. I'm going to try to use a different camera and leave the broken ipod at home. It was 450 yen and hazelnut cake, I think, which is kind of a standard thing. It started off good, but I'm used to thinner cake layers (actual "normal" cake) and more cream or nuts between, so by the end I ruled it a fail. The cake seemed a little too moist for me too.

I don't know. Cake for children or guests you don't care enough about to go one train station either direction for one of the better shops? Of course, it's near the station and small, so it's convenient if you live there (there's another cake shop or tart shop across the street and a place that has a sweets buffet on the other side of the tracks, too).

Thanks to the yogurt drink (and a carrot: I don't eat sugar on an empty stomach, usually), I was full, so didn't buy more cake at Jiyuugaoka, despite the temptation. I was not really that tired, so I took the long way home (not because of cake, but to use used book vouchers before they start expiring). So I also took natural solution to bad cake and bought cake from a great shop, in this case Toshi Yoroizuka, near Ebisu Station (although I've visited the Tokyo Midtown one a lot. 

This is anja or annya (?: アンニヤ・アンニャ), which was listed as staff-recommended at 560 yen. I hesitated at rhubarb, which I avoided as a child, but realized that I actually don't know what rhubarb tastes like, so I should find out. Maybe I still don't know, since it was not that strong and there are berries. Note that the flower is an actual flower, so I didn't eat it, but the stick is white chocolate. The base is crumb crust (or it was once I got it home), with cheesy custard or custard-like cheese inside, although the whole cheese thing might be in my mind and it was just baked custard: I need more custard experience. The top part is rhubarb mousse I assume (real mousse, not gelatin, although there could be a little for stabilization). There are berries and sauce on top, as you can see. Great cake. Why would you not eat great cake if that was an option?