Au Bon Vieux Temps: Chocolat Framboise

As planned, I ran round trip to Tokyo Midtown, about 7 km at 9 km/h round trip, on Friday night and did not get anything, just ate homemade canelé (which were not very successful: I need to follow the recipe and not overfill the forms, as it causes various problems).

Saturday I got my flu shot, as planned and mostly took it easy (did some necessary food shopping).

Today, I went by bicycle (about 26 km round trip) down to Au Bon Vieux Temps (オー　ボン　ヴュー　タン) in Todoroki, Setagaya-ku, and got the Chocolat Framboise (ショコラフランボワーズ; 561 yen）. Note, not so much raspberry in this, just enough to get a taste and seeds in your teeth. However, this is in the same style as their Zyphir and Tentation Chocolat, which I've liked, so I don't mind so much. The top is chocolate decoration and a raspberry, chocolate cream, on top of a chocolate disk with raspberry pieces in it. As far as I could tell, there is no raspberry in the bottom cake part. I was thinking that the bottom was going to be brownie like, but actually it's fairly crunchy. There are nut pieces in there, but some dark crunchy bits as well, maybe nubs, but didn't really have that look. Certainly, it was delicious and let me wanting more. I've had cakes that's I've really liked that would would prefer to split with someone, but this is one where I wouldn't have minded having two of the same. I'
m not complaining about the size, though.

Viron: Tarte Apricot

Snow and rain stopped in the afternoon, although it's still 10 degC colder than any other run this season, but I could go to Viron and back, over 10 km, averaging above 9 km/h. My knees were hurting afterward abit, but they warmed up in the shower and seem okay now.

"Cake" for today was the Tarte Apricot from Viron for 486 yen. It's more of a pasty, although it was with the cakes and I've already decided that tarts count as cake in general, so it seemed fair to take it over either of the coffee-flavored cakes (an Opera and an éclair). The tart was definitely good, with a nice apricot flavor and sugary buttery goodness, but was not really memorable, so I'm demoting Viron back to just "excellent" rather than "near-great" as a shop. Still, I've had several great cakes from there, so when I get around to reviewing the great cakes I've recorded, I'll get back there again and if they have something new that looks promising, I'll try it too.

Long run to Frédéric Cassel for Mille-Feuille Caramel Pomme

Took the Shinjuku History and Culture course from the beginning of the Gaien Walk to as far as Akasaka Mitsuke along the Outer Moat Walk. I noticed that the on-site guide marker map indicates the Outer Moat Walk should climb up to the footpath parallel to the road after St. Ignatius Catholic Church, so I did. Also, running on the north side in front of Hotel New Otani causes a lot of delay from the stop lights, so I finally switched to the south side. Both changes made to the map. From there, I ran to cross Inner Moat Road and then did the imperial moat course one full lap and then to Hibiya. There was a running event of some kind going on, so people were standing with signs at the kilometer mark points (I joined just before the 4 kilometer point and the woman of the couple in front of me was surprised that the person holding the sign and cheering people to not give up was her mother), though it was only obvious that a few people were obviously participating (beyond the few hundred at the start/end point). Rather than go all the way to Ginza running, I decided to just stop at Hibiya and take the subway tunnels to Ginza Mitsukoshi (which is about 700 m).

The cake was the Mille-Feuille Caramel Pomme (ミルフィユキャラメルポム, 864 yen), which is a fairly normal mille-feuille with a layer of apple in the middle and some caramel taste. It was definitely good, but I can't call it excellent: I'm not interested in having it again, and also I didn't appreciate that the apple was surrounded by layers of sponge cake. In mile-feuille? There might be structural reasons why it could not have been surrounded by mille-feuille (puff) pastry, for example, or caramelized almond slices, which I would like, since keeping the layers from sliding was obviously an issue, but it just seemed wrong to me, even though it was too thin really to affect the texture much more than the apple already did.

Took the short route back to Lawson 100. Total, I ran 16.4 km, all three parts averaging 9 km/h. I'm feeling good. Maybe this week, I'll finally use up my budget enough to expand it for the first time in three weeks. It's going to get colder tomorrow, but I'd like to get over to Viron, with a backup in Tokyu Plaza (Ginza), which will be another 11 km, so I'll only have 6 km left for Friday night, so I'll probably go to Tokyo Midtown, not find anything new, and come back and eat homemade canele or macarons, which I'll be doing Saturday anyway, since I plan to get this year's flu shot.

Le Jardin Bleu: Misérable

Got a second cake of Le Jardin BLue at Isetan and then did a training run in only like rain. This took three laps at Meiji Jingu Gaien, running 8 km/h there, alternating 300 m (7 times) at 10 km/h and 200 m at 8 km/h, but then I went too fast going home and have to count that as 10 km/h, but I'm still okay for this week's plan, since I already substituted out two laps around Akasaka Palace course for one lap and a short side trip for cake for one run this week.

The cake was Misérable (ミゼラブル; 432 yen) and I was expecting a rather plain cake. The description says it's dacquoise with buttercream filling as a traditional Austrian cake, but if you Google this name, it comes up Belgian, which makes more sense, since the name is French. I just had this cake type of cake from Échiré Maison du Beurre not long ago, and that one was not as good, as it was just very sweet buttercream. This one, the buttercream is praliné, with actual nut pieces and uses syrup, which has a more caramel flavor than just sugar, although the effect would perhaps be the same if they brushed some syrup on the dacquoise, which many recipes do (I've learned from experience baking). So it was excellent cake, and I could go back get another there tomorrow, to have three, which is my target now for excellent shops, but I have to rest from cake and running sometimes (actually, I'm hoping to make macarons tomorrow), so I'll just have to wait until either they come to Isetan again, or I get up to being able to run 60 km in a day (or admit that that's never going to happen and go by bicycle).

Jean-Paul Hévin: Macaron Chocolat a l'Ancienne, Feuilletine Praliné

Was at Tokyo Midtown and picked up pieces of the two cakes I haven't blogged yet (but I've had multiple times before): Macaron Chocolat a l'Ancienne (マカロン ショコラ　ア ランシエンヌ, 699 yen) and Feuilletine Praliné (フィユティーヌ プラリネ, 624 yen). These are "Saisonnier", but regulars. The first is just what it sounds like, a cake-sized macaron of dark chocolate with extra dark chocolate around it as decoration. As a macaron, it is on the dry side, both the filling, which is pretty solid, and the shell part, but as cake it is decadently chocolaty. I'm going to say this is great, but I can't be objective about it and actually I've had times when I was tired of it from getting it too often. I really need to compare it to something else.

But the second doesn't really help, because I like it about the same. It's similar in being meringue, though is very airy (it's hard to cut and keep the dome intact when you're trying to split it with someone) compared to the crisp shell of the macaron ancienne and it's milk chocolate, along with the obvious nuts, but one has the same impression of eating something more decadent than a usual cake, though still more substantial than a mousse cake. I'll also say this is great and look forward to comparing with other great cakes. These put me at 26 cakes posted for JPH, so it's going to take a while for me to catch up with other shops, probably next year, but I'm getting close. I don't recall there being that many more regular seasonal cakes. Perhaps there will be a couple new weekend-only specials for the holidays. Still, there's the one coffee-flavored cake over at Marunouchi, which I will give a try for the sake of completeness.

I ran later, over to the imperial moat and around once. Not many people at 8 pm on a Sunday night. Passed one couple going the other way twice, which is a first, I think, and means they presumably left the course on the north end and ran on the other side of the road for that part, since it's narrow and marked as one way, the one part that is. Also on the north end, it was a little unsettling having someone running behind me, matching my pace, for about the last quarter of the 5 km loop, but the north end is pretty lonely (though there are police stationed a couple places along there), so I don't blame her for preferring to have someone else in sight. I'm rotating through my injuries and have come around to having some foot pain (and I walked a lot today, thus Tokyo Midtown), so I was focusing on rolling heel to toe rather than just straight-legging it pendulum-like. My first kilometer might actually have been closest to only 7 km/h, but the average to the course was 8 km/h, and the course and coming back made it into 9 km/h territory. I've having to adjust my planned course down to remain within my budget. I'm going to try a 16 km run on Wednesday, which is a holiday, but still want to get back to Asterisque this week. Tomorrow I'll hit Isetan for a second Le Jardin Bleu cake and do some training running, which is relatively short distance, if there isn't heavy rain.

Asterisque: Gabrielle

Today's run was to Asterisque again. This time I got Gabrielle (ガブリエル), although I might be misremembering "Gabriel": I should really write these down when I'm in the shop. This is a dome of cassis (blackcurrant) flavored meringue, with some cassis mousse and cassis compote in the center/bottom. I think I've had this before (pre-blog), but I suspect that I didn't appreciate it as much. Now, I don't need everything to be nuts and chocolate, plus I brought it home, so I could eat it in a relaxed environment. Even though fruity cakes aren't my favorite, this was not too strong or weak, and it's unusually light: you could easily eat it with a spoon, except for the hard base.



Running was slightly more than last time, so still 10 km, with half 9 km/h and coming back cake-running 8 km/h. I'd run again tomorrow, but I really am not getting much else done and I need to do some cleanly by tomorrow night. Probably get something worth blogging Saturday/Sunday, but no running: I'm planning to get a flu shot instead.

Le Jardin Bleu: Malagasy

Today, I ran to Tokyo Midtown first, just to extend my run (since I haven't run lately) and to make sure Henri le Roux doesn't have anything there I need to know about, which they didn't. The lights are up, although I don't get what's pretty about them (the ones on the smaller trees along the path to here look better than these).



Then I went back to the Meiji Gingu Gaien course and did two+ laps, alternating between 8 and 10 km/h, and then home. Total, it was about 10 km of running, with more than two-thirds at 8 km/h (everything before the laps plus the slow intervals), 1.8 km at 10 km/h (in 300 m intervals), and then the run from the end of the intervals to home at 9 km/h.

Cake was from Le Jardin Blue (ル・ジャルダン・ブルー), who are visiting Isetan from way out west in Tokyo. Only one type of fresh cake left at 7 pm (although there was some sort of pastry/tart thing) left, the Malagasy (マルガッシュ) for only 432 yen. This is a dense chocolate cake with dense ganache. Sites I saw while trying to figure out what the Japanese name might mean (it refers to people of Madagascar) claimed it was a French version of a Sacher Torte, but I'm not convinced. Anyway, it's pretty simple in its way, but it was actually exactly what I wanted (I'm kind of sick of my carob brownies, but that's okay, because I've finally used up the carob powder on the last batch). Since it's the first cake I've had from this shop and it passes the I'd-like-to-learn-to-make-this test, I'll say it's excellent, though it's not so different from similar cakes I've had from various places that I've given various ratings, probably. I should try Le Jardin Blue cake again while they are Isetan.