L'Abricotier, Illanka

Once again, I was back in Nakano-ku to visit L'Abricotier. My excuse, besides that I can only visit on holidays, is that I planned to do a cake-off with their cake next week, so it's a priority not to get behind on them, even though otherwise Ryoura and Éclat des Jours (which doesn't require a holiday, but it's become harder to get something new late in the evening), which are also in the quite exceptional list, probably deserve turns first.

I ate in, as I usually do for new cakes there. I went with a new cake to the shop again, Illanka, but I was not that impressed. It was good, though a little melty, but not any more than advertised, cherry and chocolate mousse. Of course, that combination could have gone very wrong, so I'm not discounting that it was good, but I need something more at this point. Someone more into cherries might be able to better distinguish what's special about this cake, or maybe a more refined appreciation of chocolate.

The bicycling for the cake took a couple hours (I'll say that unconsciously I wanted more exercise, and that's how I got so offtrack on the way there). I ate a half-lunch and went out again walking to see how my feet are doing. I practiced too neighborhood running course loops from memory, the Akasaka 7 and 8 loops, which form their own clump of routes, though total they are only about 2 km, less than the one-way distance to reach them. I was successful (Akasaka 8 is trivial and 7 just has one tricky bit) and no great problem with my feet despite a fast pace and having already done bicycling, though I was pretty tired afterward (not running tired, but still). I might repeat tomorrow night, this time counterclockwise for each, since I plan to get cake from Isetan, though really I should do my indoor workout and maybe some cleaning to free up time later in the week.

Cake-off: Ryoura's Soyeux over Il Pleut sur la Seine's Le Saint Marc

As a third-round cake-off between two one-and-one cakes, I went by bicycle to Ryoura first to get their Soyeux, though I stopped a few places along the way to add pictures for sites on current or planned neighborhood running course. The Soyeux didn't care for the vibration I found later, though mainly some of the base crumbled off. As the second cake, I choose Le Saint Marc from the just returned Il Pleut sur la Seine, though I'll note that they've only returned in a small way. They are down to 4.5 hours a day, 3 days a week, and I think they had all of 4 types of fresh cake, including roll cake.

I went out again after lunch and did the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop sufficiently well counterclockwise by bicycle, so I have a basic grasp of the new course and its sites. I still have three other dead-end connecting loops in that clump of routes to do, though I might visit Akasaka first, and I also need to do the revised Shibuya east loop, which are both small. I might try out my feet walking to one, either before or after going for cake by bicycle.

Returning again, exhausted, I finally did the cake-off. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling the greatness of Le Saint Marc today, though it passed through the first two rounds fine and I can't say that there was anything wrong with how it was made this time, just the chocolate and whipped cream wasn't impressing me and I definitely liked the Soyeux better.

Charmant Gourmand, Moelleux au Chocolat Praliné

I went back to Charmant Gourmand to work on large group of what I've decided to call the quite fine shops, which need to be worked down to 32, and also I need to remove ones faster than I am them, or at least confirm they belong there. 

I had liked the Moelleux au Chocolat Figue last time, so this time I got Moelleux au Chocolat Praliné. As a change, I also microwaved it to make it more soft, as instructed, but that just makes it pudding, which is probably less interesting. Also, I like my praliné more sugary, though that might have gotten lost in the hit chocolate pudding. Still good, but this shop can join the fine shops. 

For exercise, I tried to do the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop counterclockwise (which is at least more with traffic rather than against it). I know all the sites, but I'm not used to the new order yet and don't know where to turn for the new shops, so where I needed to turn for 7clover. That wasn't the only failure, but none big, so it was good to review and I can maybe do it next time. I decided that I should add the Sakuraoka Park, which just looked more like a parking lot and was used for smoking last time I paid attention to it, but does seem to be a proper park, even if not a green one. Also, I should add M.Nature over in Shibuya east loop, despite not being too excited about visiting them again. 

For tomorrow, I don't whether I'l  I  Not sure whether I'll the big loop counterclockwise again or go out to the Marunouchi JPH for their chocolate muffin (since I've had my cakes for the week). 

Pierre Hermé, Macaron Infiniment Chocolat Belize

Out of order, I went to get a cake from Pierre Hermé for their cake-off win a little while back. Now is their macaron festival, or something, so most of the new "cakes" are large macarons. Their standard chocolate cake won the cake-off, so it was appropriate to get their chocolate macaron cake, Macaron Infiniment Chocolat Belize, which doesn't require explanation. On the minus side, it's just a giant macaron really. It needs to be fairly solid to keep it's shape, compared to a regular macaron sandwhich. On the plus side, it's really good chocolate and macaron. I'll call it excellent.

Exercise was muscle training with the usual NHK videos, which leave me pretty out of breath compared to exercising outside, even though it's 20 minutes of video with 8 minutes of (intense) exercise. Except, I can't do Bulgarian squats, at least with my left leg, since the top of my right foot can't support me. Something import in there is broken, for a few years now.

Jean-Paul Hévin, Verrine Chocolat Café

For cake, I went to Jean-Paul Hévin to finally try the Verrine Chocolat Café, which will probably be in for this month from them.

For exercise, I tried to verify clockwise the new Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop (south of Shibuya Station) by bicycle and did well enough (I made mistakes but could immediately correct myself). Next is counterclockwise. On the way back, I say a bicycle and motorcycle collide, but I think they both stayed upright. The motorcycle was turning and the bicycle was trying to go straight. Probably the motorcycle had the right of way, but the bicycle was pretty much doing the normal thing, which is pretty standard for Japanese traffic regulations: safe in theory, except too strict for people to follow, though bicyclists are perhaps the worst offenders in general.

Verrine Chocolat Café was pretty much as good as I could expect. The chocolate mouse was delicious and the coffee part certainly tasted like coffee, much more than the mint did in the mint verrine chocolate. Didn't make me sick, but I'd need to eat a lot more of these (over a period of time) to get used to coffee enough to want it again. I'll call it good.

Les Cacaos, Pistache

Went out by bicycle and confirmed a couple sites I had just added to the revised loop south of Shibuya Station, then went as far out as Oyamadai to check the line-ups of a couple shops, and returned east to get cake from Les Cacaos. It's been a while, and the one great cake I've had there has been absent for several years (probably because Cuban chocolate is not so common). This time I got Pistache, which is pistachio and a high amount of cacao, supposedly. Neither made much of an impression separately or in harmonization. This is a soft (sponge) cake, but may with some sort of fruit with seeds, because there was some of that unpleasant raspberry seed feeling, though I didn't track it down. It didn't taste bad, but especially under the new rating system, I want to say that this was just ok. Les Cacaos hold on its shop group status (which I'm going to change from excellent to exceptional, in revising to avoid overlap between cake ratings and shop ratings) was weak to begin with, but I'll have to see what the competition can manage. Specifically, it and La Vie Douce were identical before this cake, so it wouldn't take much for me to swap these two shops.

Cake-off; L'Abricotier's Montelimar over Sadaharu Aoki's Tarte au Citron

Got the Tarte au Citron from Sadaharu Aoki first, walking to and from Isetan. I noticed that they also had a new coconut cream puff, which I assume will stick around for at a least a couple weeks, so I'll not worry about it next week. Then I went by bicycle and picked up Montelimar from L'Abricotier, came back and had a half-lunch, and then went about again (like Thursday) to try to do the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi...Uguisudani-chou loop. I tried starting at a different part and messed that up, and then after I got on track, I missed the first turn, so clearly I don't know the course yet, which is not so surprising given the many changes. Also, as it happens, pointless to try to know it, since I've had to completely revised it much more dramatically again. One bakery was lost (which simplifies that part), one was found (so I have to turn early, but that's more natural anyway), and I've decided to add a religious headquarters for one of the Shinto-related "new religions" (which meant I had to split off the Mark City part into a separate loop), and one café (which has a convenient pedestrian crossing near it). However, most of the changes are due to the loss of a pedestrian bridge connecting the north and south parts on the west end (and also this loop to Nakameguro), so I have to loop all the way back to the east side, flipping the order of a bunch of things, although in some ways the course looks less convoluted now. The bridge was replaced by a regular crosswalk, probably because there is a lot more traffic across that road now that the new music college opened. In other news about that course, Il Pleut sur la Seine is back in business, though in a smaller shop on the west rather than east side of the building and they have the cake I need for a cake-off, so probably I'll be there next week if I don't finding something higher priority before then.

Unfortunately, I've decided that Sadaharu AOki's Tarte au Citron isn't really that different from other high-quality lemon tarts, so it loses to the Montelimar and gets kicked out of the greats list.