Nana Gâteaux: Mont-Blanc

Did a (two-) neighborhood run and also got a cake from a new (for me) neighborhood shop, Nana Gâteaux, in Sendagaya, which is a neighborhood that I'm not that familiar with. The shop is sort of a café, though they told me no eating in today (I was arriving ten minutes before closing, which is only 7 pm, so I was not surprised). Eventually I'll get around to taking pictures of it in the day time, but I haven't finished with my Shinjuku neighborhoods yet for that. I jogged with the cake and finished both of my latest neighbor routes, Sendagaya and (north) Jinguumae, without mistakes and without looking at the map, so gone ahead and tentatively made the one for northeast Harujuku-Omotesandou (central Jinguumae), which is simple, so I should learn the route, at least, quickly. I need to catch up on the photos and learning the names.

The Mont-blanc was fine. It certain would not challenge any of the better shops, but I'm not sure about less shops, as I usually would not go straight for Mont-blanc, but the selection was limited as expect. Not very big or particular cheap for the size. I'm kind of whining, which it probably does not deserve. Anyway, I'll call it good and not expect to be back there any time soon, which is the best I expected from a random shop.

Clair de Lune: Saint-marc

Decided to do another long run to one of the three shops new to the Quite Excellent category, Clair de Lune. Roundtrip, about 17 km, with a low 10 km/h out and a low 9 km/h back, which is still faster than I expected, since I had a long run Monday and another run Tuesday, so was still a little creaky, though not so stiff.

I past last time, so this time I took the Saint-marc. This is a simple cake that I like. This one was not particularly special among saint-marc, but they did a good job so I'm rating it excellent.

Was surprised to find myself running through a shopping arcade (though I often start on one main east-west street going back and work my way down to the next main one as the stoplights require. This is apparently Satake shopping street. Obviously, things close down mostly by 8:30, which is not very surprising.

Frédéric Cassel, Tarte Noisette

Decided to do the cake for Frédéric Cassel's last cake-off win. I went a long way relatively fast yesterday, so I just did 9 km/h both ways for about 9 km. The US visit police presence and road barricades around Yotsu Station and Hibiya Park were gone, not that they affected me much either way.

The cake was Tarte Noisette, which is, bottom to top, praliné, hazenut-flavored chocolate ganache filling, and white chocolate & Guérande salted hazelnut whipped ganache. It was excellent nutty goodness, as expected. Glad to get a chance to try this. Of course, they have a couple other hazelnut things, as this month's theme, that I probably won't get to, as I'm behind on other shops and the theme will change again next month, no doubt.

[Sat. thru Mon.] Jean-Paul Hévin: Kouglof Chocolat & Kouglof Chocolat Caramel Salé

I'm behind posting. Part of that is too much time fiddling with my Neighborhood map, for which I took a bunch of pictures for parts of the SE of Yotsuya 3choume neighborhood, which has 55 total items (about half temples, but also shrines, parks, churches, cake shops, and similar), which I've finally fully memorized. Still need to attach all the photos I have, but some of them need fixing (the ones taken vertically need to be edited and saved twice in order for them to appear correct).

Cake was a visit to the Jean-Paul Hévin chocolate bar at Isetan, where I got the kouglof cake set which gives you slices of both the chocolate and chocolate salted caramel version) with Chocolat Chaud Framboise (I think; haven't been studying my French). This came with whipped cream for the cake, which otherwise does not really qualify as "fresh" cakes, since it's more like a torte, though I am not yet making that distinction, since I don't usually by pound cake, or "weekend cake" or other cakes that you aren't told to eat that day. The cake was definitely good, but no competition for their usual fresh cakes, and the hot chocolate was excellent, which is better than average, I suppose.

Running for the weekend did not come until Friday night, where I just missed completing the Sendagaya neighborhood run without mistakes (I added Sendagaya 4choume Children's Play Park, which Google doesn't identify and turned too early on the new leg), so I think I'll be okay going forward and try a longer run with this as a component. I also did a run through the next one south, which is centered around Jinguumae 3choume, looking frequently at my phone. Found one part quickly where I'm going to need to turn back toward the center to find a crosswalk without a crossing light, but the bigger problem is the bridge on the southeast is closed for construction, so I can't use it to connect to the Aoyama course. To get there account to my rules, I need to construct the map for the neighborhood north of Omotesando Station and the connecting one for South Aoyama to come on the Aoyama one from the south. I ran about 10 km total at 9 km/h. Monday, I ran 21+ km at 10+ km/h out and 9+ km/h back with no cake to show for it, but I was still feeling bloated from the rest of the weekend (after JPH), that I'm fine with just adding some pasta and tomato to dinner rather than something sweet.

Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Breteuil versus L'Abricotier's Sicilien Figue

Did a run out to L'Abricotier to get a Sicilien Figue to do a cake-off against Frédéric Cassel's Breteuil, a greate cake that finally became available again that was bottom of my list (for some reason, by list is from most recent cake to most in the past) for a cake-off. The run was short of 10 km, due to walking from Isetan to the northwest edge of the main Shinjuku underground tunnel system, despite running down from L'Abricotier to the Marunouchi Line, which is about another 1.5 km. I justified my laziness by the fact that I had ran the night before, I was going to busy this weekend and still had things to do in preparation the required physical energy, so I didn't want to exhaust myself running Friday (it's Culture Day, so three-day weekend), and running carrying cake does not seem good for tendinitis in the arms, which I still have concerns about. I took the train all the way to Ginza (on the same train, which is why I didn't use the nearest line from L'Abricotier) to get the second cake and then took the train home (because, by that point, the first cake was loosing it's ice and if running carrying cake is bad, then running carrying two cakes is twice as bad).

Suspecting a problem, I started with a bite of Sicilien Figue. It had a distinctive fig and pistachio taste that had caught my attention previously to make me designate it as great. Then I started on the Breteuil, which is a super-rich pistachio dome cake; I should dislike it for being a gelatinous (though not sticky) dome cake, it is is so rich, that gelatinousness was not an issue. As a result, the Breteuil easily won the cake-off and I have to give the Sicilient Figue the benefit of the doubt that it really was great, because it's hard to evaluate anything remotely subtle between bites of Breteuil. If you like pistachio, you should definitely get over to Ginza Mitsukoshi and try this.

14 Juillet Tokyo: Délice Cassis Marron

Ran out to 14 Juillet Tokyo for a fifth cake, and also toured the shops of interest in the Marunouchi-Kyoubashi-Ginza area without finding anything interesting except that Frédéric Cassel still has one of their standard cakes that they just put back in their line-up, so no surprise. On the way, I saw this shop, Christa, open for the first time along the main road. I've never been there, or their incarnation under their previous unfortunate name, but they're the Neues guys, so I have them covered. Still, I should cake something from them some time just to be neighborly.

The cake, Délice Cassis Marron, was simple and cheap, which is not a bad thing. Shockingly, the cake is mostly (spongy) cake, though you can see some cassis (black currant) and marron (chestnut) layers in there. Had it with Earl Grey. It was good and I have no complaints about the quality, but my preference is toward something more decadent.

Pierre Hermé: Yu

Did another neighborhood run to learn the Southeast Sendagaya course. Made too early a turn after the station where I changed the map (or tried to; Google reverted it) and overshot going around Zuienji loop, the southeast one, and apparently ended up going around it twice, which surprized me at the time, since I though I reverse direction at one point and went around a corner, but quickly found that I hadn't, but at least it gave me another chance to make the correct turn turns. I also followed the course south of Shinjuku Gyoen over where I messed it up and confirmed that I could do it correctly (at least until the bypass get's finished and that area gets cut off). Total, I think I did about 9 km (including 3 pedestrian bridge crossings) at a low -9 km/h.

New month and new cakes at Pierre Hermé. Rather than following this month's theme, vanilla (which I've had the main one already), I chose Yu, which is yuzu-flavored apple compote inside praliné mousseline on top of hazelnut dacquoise surrounded by milk chocolate. It looks good and has good ingredients of no doubt high quality, but it is all overly mild for me. At the very least, dark chocolate would be an improvement, I think. Still good, but someone it seemed dry, maybe. I had it with Earl Grey tea, so maybe milk as a drink or a side of rich vanilla ice cream would make this better.