Viron: Bourgogne

Went to the next in the list of priority shops: Viron. I went to the shop down in the Shibuya Stn. area, since I wanted to (and did) run the Jinguumae 5&6 loop counterclockwise, to confirm the recent revision. That leaves one revised loop reconfirm (at least until next time I go exploring). I got Bourgogne, which is mousse  of cassis and strawberry in win, a cassis mousse cover, and cinnamon cream. The outer cassis jelly dominated, though I could taste the cinnamon and win influence. For me, it was just okay. I took this as the most conventional thing sold as cake, but I probably should have known that it wouldn't suit me. Still, I don't know until I try. Still, one new cake that doesn't impress me doesn't stop them from being a high priority shop, for now. As a note on the picture, this is what happens when you take a full running carrying cake. It actually survived pretty well. I only had to rescue the currant from the roof of the box and wipe off the Viron marker and little bit.

Blondir, Bourgeonner

Monday, I worked late, so I did some neighborhood course confirmation near Tokyo Midtown and stopped for a croissant from Sadaharu Aoki, since they don't have any fresh cake that I haven't had. It was excellent. It says that it was imported from France, but I expect in the form of butter and flour, not already baked, though they could import frozen dough. I completed confirming the Minami-Aoyama east loop and the Roppongi 7 west loop and did the Roppongi 7 east clockwise (all in the National Art Center clump of three loops).

Tuesday, I ran down to the Sadaharu Aoki at Shibuya Hikarie ShinQs and got their exclusive Tokyo-yaki Macaron Chocolat, which is a traditional Japanese cake made from batter and a mold with a macaron inside instead of bean paste. Also, the cake part was mochi-like (chewy) and green tea flavor. I microwaved it for 20 seconds as recommended, and it pretty much recreated the traditional texture despite having a macaron for filling. I'll never do that again. I'll call it good because it was as designed, but if I try another flavor, I'll have it cold, though I don't expect it would be better. Hopefully I'll find better things elsewhere. For the running, I did a one-way neighborhood course run to formally add the newly designed Shibuya east loop and well as confirm my knowledge of it, which completes the Shibuya Station Southeast clump of two loops.

Wednesday, I got cake at Isetan from Blondir, as a third cake from a seemingly quite good shop. This is supposedly pistachio ganache with strawberry soaked in red wine, but then there is Kirsch in there somewhere, maybe in the raisins on top, as they were definitely soaked in something. The feeling was more like a rum raisin cake, but then pistachio is the fruity nut. It was interesting and I approval of the design. Definitely wouldn't mind having it again, so excellent: Blondir will make the cut. Now on to the "C" quite good shops. Running was to Ginza, touring from Mitsukoshi and then (walking underground) to Viron and to 14 Juillet, none of which had anything unexpected.

Paris S'éveille: Savarin Vin Rouge

Home early to let the gas company do some sort of safety inspection (first time, at least under what system this was; I'm suspicious that it's just a marketing effort to promote their electricity business, since they didn't do a lot). I didn't have any place that was a priority that I couldn't get to on a weekday (I did have, but saw last night that they were coming to Isetan next week, and Heritage, which closes at 7 pm, isn't open Wednesdays), so I decided to just go down to Paris S'éveille on a weekday while the sun was up. I should stick to a regular route when cycling so I don't keep ending up having to wade through Harajuku and Shibuya Stn.

Closest thing to new cake that I could get was Savarin Vin Rouge, and it didn't especially look like anything had sold out, though I supposed something might have. I'm not sure what the fruit is, since I didn't bother to try to read the card, maybe mikan. Savarin at least has a good excuse for coming in a cup and still being called cake. It was good and I don't have any suggestions for improvement other than to stick with rum, though I suppose the red wine might go better with the fruit, which I would care about if I liked fruit-based desserts.

Paris S'éveille: Mistral

Changed my Sunday from going to a new place to going to Paris S'éveille for a new cake. I was thinking of going to a new place, since I hadn't visited one for a week, but then I decided that places should remain new until I catch them up to other shops of the same level, in terms of numbers of fresh cakes. Since I'm still doing that with Eclat des Jour, I'm covered.

I did some more exploring of new paths at the beginning (adding maybe half a kilometer and not really finding anything I want to use, though going into Meiji Gaien might still be worth it to stay off the main road longer) and then used the route under Old Yamanote Road that I was on yesterday to do the short path including it, which included part of the route into Gakegei Daigaku Station and avoiding the randomness of my route past Nakameguro Station. It was over 12 km, but just barely closer to 9 km/h than 8 km/h. It's been a while since my knees were sore at the beginning. There will be a 30 hour rest before the next run, so hopefully that will be enough to cover and I won't have to take an actual rest day (again, greed is the issue).

They had a couple new cakes that the "Chef" recommended that looked good, but they also had Mistral, which seems like something I've seen before but not posted on, at least. This is a pâte sucrée chocolate base, with a biscuit biscuit, lavender Bavarian cream, chocolate coating, and the fruit is black currant and blackberry, plus there is wine, though I forget the details. It all works together and of course I like chocolate, so I thought it was excellent.

L'Abricotier: Sicilien Figue

Due to rain, it was not too hot to run today (even after the rain stopped in the afternoon, it was cloudy, so the temperature did not rise so much), and I did rather than cycle, to L'abricotier, even though I ran long yesterday (due to my own mistake) and plan to run long tomorrow. However, I had not need to exhaust myself, and good reason to save some strength for tomorrow (when I'll be racing against closing time), so it was 9 km/h out and 8 km/h backStill, it was not cool and it was presumably 100% humidity. I started out mistakenly taking the path toward Aigre Douce, but they are both northwest, so it was easily correct and actually was probably better than the usual path. In generally, I just switched between north and west depending on the light until I got to Waseda  Road. Coming back, I swung by Jun Honma, just to look in, and then circled around Koenji and came back most by Okubo Road, which is not very direct but was a nice change until I passed Yamanote Line, where the crowds of tourists to the Korean area mad it hard going. Not sure that Yasukuni Road would have been better, but it's less gritty.

The cake, which I ate in, was Sicilien Figue, which is wine-boiled fig in mousse, pistachio cream/mousse (can't remember what the card said, and there were two layers), fruits rouge (of or including raspberries) gelatin, and some pistachio biscuit. I really like a good pistachio cake and am often disappointed. This did not disappoint me, it was, I think great. The pistachio was flavorful, the fig complemented it, and the fruits rouge accented it, everything harmonizing.

As a result, I've decided to return L'abricotier to the Quite Excellent category, though it's a little bloated now (as in real life, preferences are not well-ordered, so there are multiple candidates for getting the boot, though L'abricotier is strictly better than at least one). That takes some pressure off reviewing the less frequented Excellent ones, though I'll get to that soon. Also, it means it's time for another cake-off, so that clarifies my weekend somewhat, and also suggests that maybe Friday night I'll do a cakeless training run so that I can get to a new shop on Sunday.

Saturday: Viron

No running, of course, but definitely a week-on-week improvement in my right leg. Friday, by walking only somewhat more slowly than usual, I could arrive at work without pain, and other walking pain that day was more numbness than tear-inducing pain, so I'm optimistic that I'll be able to run again. I'm hoping that I'll be able to walk normally for reasonable distances by next weekend. Still working out inside, both upper-body exercises (although I'm doing push-ups from the knees) and a lot of squats.

Saturday, I went out to Mitsukoshi for another form for tarts (not actually a tart form: Cuoca lists it as for brioche). I wanted exactly one more, and that's exactly what they had of that size, probably because I bought seven last weekend. And I bought another half kilogram of pecan halves.

At Mitsukoshi, I got also a Dalloyau croissant, which was great (but no picture, sorry), beautifully layered and flaky and only 216 yen. So they and Fraoula have the best croissants that I've found, and I need to try Lettre d'Amour's again.

The store cake for today was from Viron again, Chiboust Poire Vinrouge for 648 yen. Inside the chiboust are large slices of wine-red pear (I assume from red wine, but I haven't read the card all the way through yet). It's both simple and complex. I don't think this is a regular item, so get it while you can.

At home, I made pecan tarts using my small forms. I used a pecan pie filling from Better Homes & Gardens and the crust is from one of my mixer cookbooks, although it came out very crumbly this time, due to being very cold in the room, so I didn't really mix until smooth, but just until I had fine crumbs that I could form into balls with the heat of my hands. I wonder if my cheap 100-yen shop eggs are also a factor, since maybe other eggs have bigger yokes. Anyway, I'm not sure that a more solid crust would be better (and I don't know how to make flaky crusts).

Also, I made pizza. It's the best use of cherry tomatoes I know and shiitake are great, although I'll try pre-grilling them a couple minutes less next time, and I'll take the trouble to make garlic and red pepper tofu cubes instead of using almonds.