Jean-Paul Hévin: Bûchette Hope

Last Thursday, probably again working late, I skipped Isetan and Marunouchi and went straight to Ginza Mitsukoshi by bicycle to get Bûchette Hope, the individual version of the most expensive of the regular sized Christmas cakes (probably because of the decoration ball not on the individual) of Jean-Paul Hévin. Based on descriptions of the full-sized cakes, the top chocolate mousse is Ecuadorean bitter chocolate, next is crème brûlée using Tahitian vanilla beans and a little timut pepper, then the same chestnut and almond biscuit as Bûchette Lichen, then a flour-less chocolate biscuit, and finally a chestnut powder sablé, hazelnuts, and caramel flavored chocolate croustillante. Like the previous day, a relatively crunch/dry cake that is a nice change while still being decadent chocolate. It's easy to say it's a great cake, though it will never get a chance to be in a cake-off. I'll have to wait until next year to see what new Christmas cakes they offer.

At home, I did the indoor workout with weights.

Friday, I did a neighborhood run course, the new Dougenzaka--Maruyamachou--Shinsenchou loop, which merges two new loops. On the way to shopping I discovered a LaDuree salon behind the Bunkamura in Shibuya, not even on Google maps yet, so I had to revise the Kamiyama-chou--Tomigaya--Udagawa-chou loop again. That led to noticing that the Jinnan loops should be merged, which meant the new loop needed to be put in a clump, which has let to a shape up of a few clumps and discovering that the Minami-Aoyama 3&4 loop was linked to the wrong loop. I still have one more clump to fix before it's all sorted out.

Jean-Paul Hévin, Bûchette P'tit Train

It's the week before Christmas, so Christmas cakes at Jean-Paul Hévin are my top priority. Monday, I was prepared to be disappointed on the first day, but they had full stocks of all three. I went with the Bûchette P'tit Train this time, which is citrus and something I didn't recognize and the Internet says is "timut pepper", though it seems to go by a lot of other names.

For running, I did the counterclockwise runs on the neighborhood course: the Samonchou loop and the Minami-Motomachi--Wakaba--Yotsuya--Sugachou--Shinanomachi loop with no problems. I thought Sendagaya--Kasumigaokamachi--Minami-Motomachi link the bridge was closed, but just parts are fenced off. So that's four loops down and a lot to go, but the second one is pretty complicated.

The cake was good quality. It has chocolate mousse, but is actually pretty heavy as JPH cakes go. It's excellent and I recommend it to anyone who likes chocolate cake.