Wittamer, Thé et Raisin

Had some coupons for the food sections of Odakyu. The cake selection is pretty weak, but I never willowed the "fine" list of shops that seem to be just average, so now I'm after getting second cakes from all, which should take a few years. The first of two counters (and coupons), was Wittamer, which is a Belgian brand, apparently. It's pretty widespread, though this was also probably where I got my first cake from them. This time I steered clear of the obvious choices and when with Thé et Raisin, maybe because I previous takeout cake was a basic chocolate cake. As the name suggests, this is tea (Earl Grey) and grape (though it actually is raisin, the dried form), with some rum. It was a well-made cake with no out of place flavors. Good but bland in a competent way. Certainly, being a safe place to get consistent cakes had it's merits, but I don't expect I'll need to visit again.

The above was the cake from Monday night. Full disclosure, I had some non-patisserie cakes of high quality Saturday afternoon as a part of an afternoon tea set. 

I think the ones with berry halves are actually pear, whereas the little one's above are chestnut madeleines, with the larger ones to the left behind the glass desserts being sweet potato mont-blancs. The middle layers was savories and the bottom was mainly tiny scones. This was also at Odakyu, in that it was their 20th floor lounge in the Southern Tower of the Century Hotel at Shinjuku.

Frédéric Cassel, Rouleau Poire au Thé

 Friday, I wasn't too late to try a run to Ginza Mitsukoshi. I would have been fine not finding anything, since I needed some motivation to run Friday night despite planning to run from the morning on Saturday. As it happens, supply was surpassing demand and I didn't have any trouble getting the target cake as reward for the last cake-off win: Rouleau Poire au Thé. I don't have much respect for roll cake, but the simplicity is sometimes an advantage when the goal is to show off fruit, at least. I can't say the tea was obvious, but that's okay. Certainly the pear was clear and I was feeling mellow enough about both roll cake and fruit that I could enjoy this and call it excellent. Just to mention the run, I didn't try to kill myself getting there and walked it back for cake safety.

Bien-être, Chiboust Earl Grey

First Thursday of the month, I completed a streak of four and scored an early cake for the next week by visiting Bien-être and finding a new cake at night, Chiboust Earl Grey (so no pistachio chiboust). I can't remember what fruit accent this had (and fruit accent is redundant with earl grey tea, but it wasn't anything strong), but it was excellent cake, which is what matters. 

Sadaharu Aoki, Chou au Mâtcha

I'll make an attempt to finally catch up, and start with the picture of the cake so it shows up at the top when I do a search (I give the cake in the post title, but then I have to actually read). I didn't get my second cake of the weekday until Thursday. I ran every day, though.

Tuesday, I ran down to Lattest, a latte shop on Jinguumai Shopping Street. They close at 7 pm, and were closed during most of the emergency. Cookies come from a jar rather than a wrapper, but I don't know the actual source. At 400 yen, not cheap, but certainly big. They also have a pound cake and a muffin. I would say this was excellent, as cookies go, on the hard side, to maintain shape, but not too hard. Either that day or the next day I went on to shop for nuts and garlic and did a long run back with a heavy pack.

Wednesday, I went to the same street and stopped a few doors down at Neko Neko Shokupan, where they were sold out of their signature item, of course, but they had the French toast version. Even that was very soft, softer than bread really should be for French toast, but still good.

Thursday, I went to Isetan, where my plan was to get a cake-off winner cake from PH, or a repeat cake from JPH, but Sadaharu Aoki had a something I couldn't find any record of having had (despite conflicting memories), so I got the Chou au Mâtcha shown above. It like their usual cream puff, not the "Chou Ginza" ones at Mitsukoshi now. This was definitely excellent, with a nice rich custard balanced by the pastry and definitely flavored with powdered green tea. Unless you really had green tea, it's worth a try, and if you really love it, you shouldn't miss it.

I'll mention that on Friday I ran for 2 hours (though not quickly in the heat, humidity, and mask) to do my recently created top sites neighborhood running course from Yotsuya Sta. to Shinjuku Sta. and down as far as Jinguumae 2. I need to not wear those shoes for that long a run again: they're too light and old and my right foot is not so good.

Atsushi Hatae, Gourmandise

Foraging for food, I went out again today. I originally intended to do a neighborhood course clump, but quickly decided that the weather was too miserable, and that I wasn't actually confident about the changes I made in merging three loops into one, and combing that with two other loops, one new, to form the clump.  Fortunately, the miserable weather and general requests to avoid unnecessary excursions, kept people off the streets around the time I was running (i.e., during the March snow). I wasn't the only jogger, or the only one buying food that might not be vital to life, but it was pretty easy to keep a good distance from everyone. I'm remembering, now, that running, like alcohol, might not be best for maintaining good judgement, so I plan to be even more careful next time, if there is a next time (i.e., if the city isn't completely locked down). When I jogged in the evening, it certainly looked (from afar), that some shops were hurting for sales, as I would expect, at least for ones away from residential areas. But enough of the depressing stuff.

Working on the neighborhood sites, I got mini-financiers from Chavaty, which is a milk and tea shop (though I don't like milk in my tea), that has scones, but no clotted cream, so I'm not sure whether to trust them for scones. Thus, I went with the mini-financiers. They aren't like homemade, but maybe not everyone likes their financiers as baked/dry as I do. Also, these seem to be chocolate, from the color, though I can't tell so much from the flavor for this kind of baked good. They were good, but not impressive. I think I got 12 originally, but this was after the late run (after I dried off, had lunch, and then the first cake).

The first shop I got cake from was the Sarugaku-chou (the website, of course, says Daikanyama, since that's the nearest station and more sophisticated than "monkey pleasure") Atsushi Hatae shop that opened last year (at the same time as his other two shops). I went with the Gourmandise as likely to meet my tastes, as well as being strong for the return trip, which probably took me an hour through mush and detours trying to confirm other shops. Tea-flavored chocolate ganache, caramel and orange chocolate cream, and hazelnut praliné as the main components. Quite sophisticated, though not original, which is fine with me. I can call it excellent. This shop goes on the list of fine shops as one that I definitely want to get back to, in the next year or so (under the current strict system).

Jun Honma; Edo Matchi

Did a run out to Kouenji to visit the Jun Honma branch there, since it's closest. It was a longer run than necessary because I got turned around past Shinjuku Station and ended up heading back south and losing all my northern progress, though that was probably just a few minutes of running. Coming back, I didn't have trouble and actually walked from the west Shinjuku subway entrance to pass under the station, and then had shopping in Shinjuku (though that was it's own kind of exercise).

At Jun Honma, I got Edo Matchi, which is a traditional heavy (think, central/eastern Europe) layer cake with matcha, matcha ganache, chocolate, and some mandarin in there (I assume the sort of gelatin looking layers is matcha and fruit gelatin). I chose it thinking that chocolate and matcha is a good combination, but I didn't really have high expectations that it would be very exciting, based on the type and the previous two cakes from there. Certainly, it is not something that blows you away from the first bite, but it impresses over the full eating, so I can easily say that is excellent. It surprised me, though I expect most chefs to the bigger places to be able to make excellent cakes, just what I think is excellent is not necessary what sells well for them. Because of one early great cake that I've never seen again, they score high enough to challenge the bottom of the exceptional group, but now it's looking more like they have an actual chance of moving up. Of course, a different shop is at the top of the quite fine shops, but they are closed Tuesdays and there is room for two to be promoted, so Jun Honma got their chance, and did well. One nice thing about them is that they are open until 21:00, so even if they are little far and getting past Shinjuku Station takes time, there was a pretty good selection.

Pierre Marcolini: Marcolini Chocolate Gateau

On Jan 3rd, finally got over to my next target café for two, the main Pierre Marcolini in Ginza. My interest was only in the cake, which they call Marcolini Chocolate Gateau. It's a café dessert, but one could image whipped cream sold on the side, so I'm going to go ahead and list it with other cakes. It was excellent, as a quite dense moist cake. I ordered it with the Marcolini Cacao Tea, which was interesting but I got tired of pretty quickly, so I can't recommend more than a taste.

For completeness the other dessert was the Marcolini Brussels Waffle, seasonal Cacao flavor. As it happens, ice cream and waffles doesn't work for me. I should of recommend the parfait. Actually, I had their vanilla soft-serve ice cream the day before in Shinjuku, and it was excellent.

Running, over a few days. I did a couple neighborhood course "clumps" of loops, the Suga-chou clump and the Soka Gakkai clump, which covers the neighborhood course between Yotsu 3-choume, Yotsu, and Shinnomachi stations, which only adds up to about 5 km.

For new loops, I finished off the Aobadai central loop, which gives access to both directions and sides of the Meguro River around Nanakameguro Station. I also completed the Ebisu 4 loop (two different days), which gives gives further access to loops leading up to immediately east of Meguro Station before dead-ending.

Mariage Frères: blueberry cassis tea tart and figgy pudding

Saturday, went to a fancy café around the corner north of Ginza Mitsukoshi. It's their "new" tea salon, being only 2 years old. It was good, but maybe not high return on cost, though it depends how much you value atmosphere. For an older crowd than my typical choices. It was lunch and cake for two and the cake was from the base choices (versus any of the items requiring an extra expense). I went with a blueberry tart with a base of cassis and some sort of tea (like every dessert there) that I've forgotten. Not sure whether these had official names, so I'm sticking to descriptions.

The other dessert chosen was figgy pudding, which is like fruitcake without the cake, I found. Both were certainly good, though once with figgy pudding was enough, though it cake whipped cream, which at least makes it fresh as a café dessert.

Camélia, Myu

Ran to a get a first cake from a relatively new shop in Ginza that I saw on TV, P. Camélia. Looked very nice, in terms of atmosphere and selection. I got Myu, a blackberry tea chocolate mousse cake marked as the recommend cake. Unfortunately, because enduring my run back, which was longer than I expected, I got distracted and didn't get it into the refrigerator quickly, so it was probably in poorer shape than it should have been, and I wouldn't have minded a colder temperature when eating, but it wasn't overly sweet (which warmth can do), so it was fine. I'm giving this the benefit of the doubt and saying it was excellent. Certainly the flavor was good, particularly for a mousse cake, including a good aftertaste.

L'Abricotier: Moulin Rouge

As a weekend visit, I went to L'Abricotier again, trying to catch it up to other top quite excellent shops so I can choose which one to challenge the current superb shops, which are vulnerable. Finding 3 hours on my feet too long yesterday, I went by bicycle. I was about about the same amount of time but my feet are much happier.

At L'Abricotier, I choose Moulin Rouge (other untried cakes are Fraiser and their cream puff) and ate in. This is a very soft fruity cake, so it was probably not a good choice, but it's been around there for a long time, so I figured I ought to try it. It has raspberry and jasmine tea mousse, separately I think. The macaron sandwich decoration I ate separately, but it was rather dry, so I should have cut it up and used it vary the texture of the cake, which was very soft. It was definitely good cake, with a good flavor balance, so it was not disappointing.

Sadaharu Aoki, Symphonie

Sunday evening, I decided to try to get the Isetan exclusive cake. I figured it was probably sold out, but if I could get it, I would run. As it happened, they were fully stocked even around 6 pm. Because of the upcoming White Day, they had two registers going and a line set up, but the moved quickly and I wasn't completing with the other people for cake, since they needed gift items, so I could Symphonie, which is a raspberry macaron-style cake with whole raspberries, tea-flavored crème brûlée, and violet cream. For the run, I did a clockwise run around the Tomigaya--Yoyogi loop finally. It's longer than I thought be a little closer, but still is about 10 km total and I took a longer way back to stop by a grocery. Counterclockwise might be harder, as I'm not sure where I'm supposed to turn off the inner street to go to the multi-lane main road on the west side to swing by a church.

The cake was excellent, with the macaron having just the amount of chewiness that I like in a macaron. The filling is not so exciting though, too subtle for me, but there is another macaron cake as a more general seasonal cake at all the shops through April, so I should get that one next week.

Yu Sasage, Ardèche

Did a west run to Yu Sasage in Minamikarasuyama, Setagaya-ku, in response to their cake-off win with Perfum, the only cake of theirs that I've put to the test. I tried to take pictures along the way, though I only seem to have a few. Anyway, the weather was cold and there was a little snow, so I didn't want to expose my phone with a cracked edge.

I always have trouble choosing, as my mind is not that organized after running and people are waiting in the cake shop so I feel pressure. The thing that made me pause was that they have a Fondant Chocolat ? Rouge, whereas I've been looking for their Fondant Chocolat aux Framboises for cake-offs for a few years. This is apparently the correct season, as I had it originally in Feb. '16, so the current Fondant Chocolat is probably a close match, but maybe not. Instead of finding out, I got Ardèche. This is very similar to the JPH cake I want great cake to match against: a chocolate cylinder with a hard coating. In this cake, the inside is very moussie: chestnut mousse and (Western) tea mousse chocolate, along with chocolate caramel ganache. This is actually a fairly mild cake, almost a milk chocolate taste, whereas I'm easily impressed by less subtle applications of sugar and nuts. This did have some crunch in the base, along with the coating, so there was sufficient variation in texture.

I'm not sure how it will hold up against further scrutiny, but I think it's not unreasonable to designate it as great. I'll try to get it again Monday and put it in a cake-off against the JPH cake. I don't have anything to match the loser against a second round, though, assuming that I still think that cake is good. My best bets are if 14 Julliet has reintroduced Au Lait Noix (they were back with having small cakes again last time I checked, but a smaller different line-up that definitely didn't have that one) or Les Cacao has put Cuba back in the line-up (haven't seen it since 2017). Not sure that I'll have time to check that latter this weekend, but I wouldn't mind an east run Tuesday or Wednesday, not to let F. Cassel go too long without a visit.

Yu Sasage: Princess

I seemed to have recovered from the tiredness of lass weekend. Might be from sleeping late. The actual run was nicer, too. As planned (though I deviated from the course somewhat), I followed close to the Keio line south of the main road rather than using the main road or using the old main road further north. It was so much nicer without all the car noise that I should always use that route, though it added an extra 1 km (though that will decrease slightly if I follow the planned route better). I could go faster (consistently 9 km/h) and still have the energy to run from the cake shop to the station and then from Shinjuku Station home rather than walking like yesterday. Total distance was 15 km.

The cake was Princess, which was a random choice, it just being just the first thing left to right that I hadn't had before. It's red peach, pistachio, and a tea biscuit. The crunchy biscuit was the best part, though the macaron was also very good. Otherwise, it was just a soft fruity cake, I'll say good, but not anything special. Yu Sasage was the lowest in the Quite Excellent list, and this gets it bumped down just Excellent. I'm holding off on replacing it until I get caught up on the newer additions.

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.

Arcachon: Equinox

Got my cake from Isetan again today, from the visiting shop, Arcachon. It was Equinox, for 500 yen, and seems to be tea cream inside chocolate mousse with a raspberry and mini blueberry macaron on top. Now, I thought there was blueberry inside, and maybe there was a subtle amount in the chocolate, but I'll need to go back to find out, which I intended to do because I've decided, partially from giving them the benefit of the doubt, that this was excellent. It's tiny, which is fine, put it puts some of the excellent shops in perspective, because they hold their cake sizes and just raise their prices as ingredient costs go up.

In other news, I've gone almost all the way with a cake recipe from my (the library's really) Super Patissier Book for "cake/batter/biscuit" (it's hard to translate "kiji" into English), which is by the Salon de thé Cerisier guy, where I've never been. There is some overlap between this and the SPB dictionary of "batter/cake", which is available in bookstores.

The first recipe, which was not the first I tried parts of, is the Marjolaine, which has a Japonaismasse (which is German) biscuit as the cake layers, between which it has ganache, creme praline, and creme chantilly. I don't do the creme chantilly for the top or the fancy decoration.

The biscuit is in the proportions 600 g egg white, 600 g granulated sugar, "appropriate" vanilla essence (so I skip, because I don't know, have, or care so much), 500 g hazelnut powder, 100 g of (not bread) flour and 200 g of powdered sugar. From my previous experience, I also add powdered egg white with the granulated sugar, because I can't make meringue without it. All the cakes in the beginning are nut-based biscuits as the cake theme. This makes 4 30-by-40 cm pans, which is 27 pieces of cake final 4-layer cake. For one 14 cm round tart form, which is what I've used, I only need 3% (18 g) of the base recipe, so one large egg is enough for two, and I can cut one in half, although I'd really like to get a fourth form and make all four layers together. Really, you are supposed to cut after you assemble and freeze.

As I was saying, you make a meringue with the egg white and graduated sugar (plus 5-15% of egg white power by weight of egg white, depending on the season) and whip it until the peaks just bend a little before cutting in the other ingredients, which should be sifted (I've got two sifters now, a big one for flour and powdered sugar and a tiny with big homes for nut powders). Then I spread it carefully in oil-sprayed and bread-floured 14 cm tart forms and bake for 30 minutes at 170 deg C in my convection oven (the recipe says 180 deg C, which is edible, but seems overly burnt, but the normal -10 deg C for a convention oven seems to work out).

The ganache for this is 150 g milk, which you boil (which seems extreme, but this is pretty much my first experience with ganache) and then add 300 g of 66% cacao chocolate and then 45 g of rum. For the creme praline, you need 600 g 38% fat cream and 200 g praline almonde (the paste). You combine and whip 7 minutes (or maybe the Japanese means seven-tenths), which means until paste-like. For the creme chantilly, you also need 600 g of 38 % fat cream and 40 g of granulated sugar and otherwise do the same thing. If you made topping, you would need another 150 g of 45% cream and 21 g of granulated sugar and do the same thing, plus some red food coloring and chocolate powder or something. The cake is assembled bottom to top, biscuit, filling, biscuit, filling, ..., so it gets thicker but lighter as you go up; but I couldn't pile the creme praline that high, so that's the one thing I left over of. Actually, I made extra fillings for the first try, so all the fillings were at refrigerator temperature this time, which is not actually part of the recipe. I'm thinking I'm put the creme praline in the freezer next time for long enough to get it thick enough to support the top two layers.

As a said at the beginning, after assembling, you put it in the freezer to harden before cutting, and of course, before eating. The first time, I just cut one biscuit disk into fourths, but this time I cut two disks into halves, so I'll try to actually cut that into two little pieces when it's ready. I'm not ready to take a picture.

Sébastien Bouillet and Gaien running course

For running, I just went back to the Meiji Gingu Gaien running course, which was pretty active, even after the Tokyo Marathon. Since I did the Inner Moat course fast, I should try the Akasaka Palace two laps fast, but before that I should do the Gaien course 6 laps fast, is the logic.

As last time, I did the 1.5 km to the south startpoint, in 9'35''05, which is slow. Then, I did 6 laps, trying to stay under 34 s/100 m (there are labeled 100 m marker tiles on the course), which is safely fast for me. Really, I just need to get under 7'41''10/lap. I starting by checking every 100 m, and it took me a few to get the right pace, and then increase the interval to 200 m with the second lap, 300 m for the third lap, etc. At first, it took me a couple hundred meters to get the pace fast enough, and then I had to avoid going too fast for the first two laps. By the fifth lab, my running was becoming a little uneven (and the course is not as even as I would like, but that's true of every course). I was definitely tired at the 6th lap, although at the end I felt I was on top of the pace. Times were 7'24''25, 7'22''87, 7'21''20, 7'27''71, 7'18''02, and 7'19''94, which all qualify as fast. I went back 1.6 km in 10'12''92, which is slow again.

So I made 6 laps, 7.95 km, fast at the Gaien running course, with another 3.1 km of slow. I'm not expecting to run Thursday and will be busy Friday, probably, so my weekday running this week may be 2.4 km very slow, 5.8 km slow, 9.1 km moderate, 15.7 km fast, 0.2 km very fast, which is 33.2 km total, which is not ahead of last week's, but already I'm way ahead of all of last week on moderate+, and fast+, which was what I was after. Whether I'm busy or not this weekend for running is still up in the air.

The cake seems to be "Tendence" (or it could be "10dance", which is a boys' love manga title, apparently) for 540 yen. Like yesterday's cake, it is tea flavored with raspberry. In this case, it is a gelatinous puck, with the tea flavor on the inside and the pretty raspberry color on the outside. Actually, the gelatinous aspect was okay, but there was little taste to recommend it, so the cake overall is only okay. I'll shift this brand to "good" from "worthy", effectively replaced by Yu Sasage.

Yu Sasage: Gaien Walk

Got a second cake from Yu Sasage during their visit to Isetan before running.

For the run, I did the east half of the Shinjuku History and Culture course, Gaien Walk and Outer Moat, before following the Shibuya course to the Inner Moat and coming back through Akasaka-Mitsuke and up past Yotsuya Station. Mostly, I was really slow about it, although the point was more to get some hills in. There was 0.2 km of very fast at the beginning, and I managed a moderate speed 6.4 km for the Shinjuku H&C (despite the hills and stairs) and a little extra to cross the main road (and because I overshot the turn onto the Shibuya course), but there was 2.7 km of slow and 2.4 very slow after that, for a total about about 11.7 km.

The cake was the Perfum, which they list as a specialty. This is a tea tart with raspberry cream and jelly with rose-scented meringue and was 486 yen. I can't say that I could pick up on most of this. Certainly, there was a tart that was good, but I couldn't tell you the flavor, and the cream/meringue was raspberry. I wanted to like it, so I did and will call it great, which means that I need make a priority of getting over to Yu Sasage itself, since they are done at Isetan. Also I was reminded that shops have Isetan-only cakes, so I should check out the visiting patisserie even when it's some place that isn't otherwise a priority, just to see if there is anything special.

Culture Day run: Hidemi and Clair de Lune

Today's run is the one shown on the map, if you check before I add another one. It was 21+ km and involved 2 h 12 min of motion (mostly running, but there were crowds and a pedestrian bridge to requiring climbing stairs. Went through some crowded areas, but also was still sore (back and hips) at the beginning (now my feet are sore). Since I have a long run planned for Saturday, I've only got Wed. or Thu. for intervals to try to build actual muscle. Not sure whether another long run after only 6 days from the previous is okay, especially with 20+ km today, but we'll see.

Wanted to go to the cafe Kneten, as a Joshi+ recommendation, but they are closed Tue, apparently even when it is a holiday (I tried calling by phone, but no answer). I had several other places in mind, though, so no problem. I ended up visiting Patissier Hidemi Sugino's place. It's a cafe and 6 of the cakes are only for eating in, but the line for getting cake was not so bad (people go in groups, so it can look worse than it is). Since I was in no condition for anyone to want me in their crowded cafe, and it was 30 minutes after opening so the cafe space was already full with a few people waiting, I got a takeaway cake: Framboisier for 680 yen, which was great, so I'll need to visit again.

Sorry, not a great picture. Too bright outside to see what I was doing (and too tired to have the sense to realize how the shadows were falling). This is raspberry, obviously. Under the whole raspberries are almond bits. There should be a couple almond cake layers in there, but mainly raspberry butter cream, although fairly light buttercream as buttercream goes. Also, some red currant gel, although not sticky or wobbly (if there were enough of it) jelly, but more of a solid sauce that cuts easily. This is very fruity cake, probably from using fruit as the sweetener rather than some other kind of sugar, but the sweetness is just right.

After another 5 km, I got back to Clair de Lune for a second time this year. Maybe this was too short a distance (even though it took several more minutes to get to a park to eat it) for cake again. As I seek quality, I find that I have to cut down on quantity, and not just due to expense. The name is The Apres-Midi (I think something else might have been written in Latin characters, but this makes sense to me and matches the Japanese phonetic name) and was 600 yen. It's almost frozen and gives off a faint ice-being-cut sound, although it does not taste icy. Obviously there are figs on top (I put them on flat-side down, so they wouldn't roll off outside) of a sort of crumb topping. Not sure what the flavors are. Could be a little chocolate or could be fig. Not vanilla. I assume tea, but not strong. It was very good, but I became less satisfied with it afterward over time, which may have more to do with what happens in my stomach when I eat and jog. Anyway, probably not great, and the shop is still not convenient (in terms of distance and crowded areas that you have to pass through to get back inside Yamanote Line) although I'm getting a little more used to jogging on that side of town, so I've removed the shop from special consideration. If I'm in that neighborhood and need take-out cake, I would go again.

(Saturday) No running; Dalloyao: Savarin aux fruits & Opale; Jean-Paul Hevin: Yuzu

Saturday, I went to the actual second-floor cafe at the Ginza Dalloyau, and not alone, so we got two cakes (although the drink and desert set is pricey). We got the Savarin aux fruits, which is kind of a standard thing anywhere: rum soaked sponge with some fruit. This one would have been 486 yen by itself. It was very good, as far as I could tell. I've only had this kind a cake a few times. Very syrupy (Which is spelled with a "y", why? English is such a pain.), which is not a bad thing.

The Opale is a new chocolate cake that is a mixture of earl grey (the Hong Kong website says lemon tea) cream, dark chocolate mouse, and chocolate sponge (supposedly, although I can't remember from yesterday and the Japanese-French note I wrote down is not helpful). The impression you get is just a really rich chocolate cake like with very moist sponge and frosting, but without actually sensing sponge or frosting separately; it is just a great chocolate cake (I couldn't tell that there was tea in it, but lemon makes sense as far as the color of one of the layers). This would be 594 yen by itself for a single piece, although you can also buy a larger cake. Still a great cake shop.

In the evening, we could have more cake, so we did (although apparently, cheese would have been preferred by one of us). Actually, there was one not cake, Varrine Chocolat Jasmin. It's not bad (besides being 711 yen), but I didn't really taste much of anything, so I can't see the appeal. The cake is called Yuzu, after the citrus fruit.
Of course, it's chocolate cake, like all their cakes (it's a chocolate shop): dark chocolate mousse, yuzu cream, and a tonka bean (which they're into there) dacquoise "croustaillant" (crispiness?) for 714 yen. Great cake. You'll note a couple macrons in the picture. I usually stay away from these, because fancy cake is already really out of my salary range, but I order them when requested. These were caramel and vanilla, and were also great. I like Jean-Paul Hevin's the best of the one's I've tried.