Yatsudoki, Chocolate Pompette

As a new shop to visit while I wait for the month to run out, I visited a shop of the dessert chain Yatsudoki, which has cakes, among other things. For logistical reasons, I ended up visiting the Shinjuku branch rather than the Jinguumae branch on the neighborhood course, though I had gone by that one on the way out. I choose the dense chocolate layer cake, which is not on the website. It's layers of almond biscuit and ganache, I assume, with some, probably inconsequential, amount of alcohol, thus the pompette. It's a relatively new chain (or a new brand of a relatively new chain), compared to most of the chain stores of the same level. Anyway, it's still a low level, but it was still good cake, which is a huge improvement over some of cheap chain shops that are hanging on, it least based on my small sample of each. Next, on to better things, though (if I could just finish work on time or if shops could stay open later without spreading illness).

Atsushi Hatae, Gourmandise

Foraging for food, I went out again today. I originally intended to do a neighborhood course clump, but quickly decided that the weather was too miserable, and that I wasn't actually confident about the changes I made in merging three loops into one, and combing that with two other loops, one new, to form the clump.  Fortunately, the miserable weather and general requests to avoid unnecessary excursions, kept people off the streets around the time I was running (i.e., during the March snow). I wasn't the only jogger, or the only one buying food that might not be vital to life, but it was pretty easy to keep a good distance from everyone. I'm remembering, now, that running, like alcohol, might not be best for maintaining good judgement, so I plan to be even more careful next time, if there is a next time (i.e., if the city isn't completely locked down). When I jogged in the evening, it certainly looked (from afar), that some shops were hurting for sales, as I would expect, at least for ones away from residential areas. But enough of the depressing stuff.

Working on the neighborhood sites, I got mini-financiers from Chavaty, which is a milk and tea shop (though I don't like milk in my tea), that has scones, but no clotted cream, so I'm not sure whether to trust them for scones. Thus, I went with the mini-financiers. They aren't like homemade, but maybe not everyone likes their financiers as baked/dry as I do. Also, these seem to be chocolate, from the color, though I can't tell so much from the flavor for this kind of baked good. They were good, but not impressive. I think I got 12 originally, but this was after the late run (after I dried off, had lunch, and then the first cake).

The first shop I got cake from was the Sarugaku-chou (the website, of course, says Daikanyama, since that's the nearest station and more sophisticated than "monkey pleasure") Atsushi Hatae shop that opened last year (at the same time as his other two shops). I went with the Gourmandise as likely to meet my tastes, as well as being strong for the return trip, which probably took me an hour through mush and detours trying to confirm other shops. Tea-flavored chocolate ganache, caramel and orange chocolate cream, and hazelnut praliné as the main components. Quite sophisticated, though not original, which is fine with me. I can call it excellent. This shop goes on the list of fine shops as one that I definitely want to get back to, in the next year or so (under the current strict system).

Cake-off: Pierre Gagnaire's Mousse au Chocolat et Yuzu over En Vedette's Mont-Blanc

Only yesterday, on a necessary trip for food, I did neighborhood course run down through western Minami-Aoyama down to Roppongi. Coming back, I stopped for my first pastry from Nino Caffe, across the main north-south street from Nogi Park. They had various fillings, and plain, but I went with the chocolate. Note sure how they were naming this, so I'll call it a just Chocolate Croissant. The croissant is pretty soft and holds a lot of filling, which seems to be chocolate custard. Very rich and good, but of of course, not so sophisticated. It was too messy to each on the way, so I saved it for home, even though I was also carrying cake and still needed to stop at a grocery (where the shelves were pretty bare, so I just got bananas, which I was running low on).

The main event, of course, was the cake-off, though that required another trip, this time down to Shibuya through Jinguumae, where I found that Yatsudoki had built a shop deep in on a street not on the running course. In the end, adding it led to merging three loops, so I'm back to having one big loop south of Omote-Sandou Road to match the one north, for the main strip between Harajuku Stn. and Omote-Sandou Stn. That's turned this clump of loops (which include a new one using the remaining bridge over Meiji-Doori to get to a little loop under Yamanote Line that has a coffee shop and a convenience store. Under current conditions, Shibuya Scramble Square had almost no customers, so social distancing was possible.

Today's match up was a first-round cake-off between two recent picks, and I'm still a little tentative about both, but they both are great simple cakes, chocolate mousse cake in the form of Pierre Gagnaire's Mousse au Chocolat et Yuzu and meringue mont-blanc in En Vedette's Mont-Blanc. I'm giving this one to the mousse cake, because it manages to give a real dark chocolate taste to mousse and cutting it with yuzu so it doesn't wear out it's welcome. En Vedette should get a remain yet, as their Roche also has one win.

Pierre Gagnaire, La Panthère Rose

Thursday late afternoon, I ran down to Pierre Gagnaire's shop for a 9th cake, as a detour from the neighborhood running course Roppongi 7 loop, which I just thought I had, but found a flaw (due to allowing the taiyaki place, since they have custard-filled ones now). I took a chance and lost, but it was educational. There were actually only 3 cake types left, one of which is great but I was looking for something new. I went with La Panthère Rose, on the grounds that there is always a panther and the "verte" wasn't that impressive, but that might be more a fault of the variation. This is a mascarpone cheese cake flavored with strawberry, the flavor of the season (ending this month, according to the original plan I saw). I had trouble with the texture of this until the very end. It might have to do with how much gelatin was in it (i.e., too much), or maybe just mascarpone cheese needs to warmed up even longer than whipped cream when taken from the refrigerator, so longer than 5 minutes, according to one authority. I'll try that next time I deal with this kind of cake.

Les Cacaos, Chocolat Noisette

Thursday, I took off the PM and went out for cake. Wasn't sure whether I would find it, since pandemic was exploding in Tokyo, but cake shops have materials, and expenses, so they go on. Under the circumstances, I changed from running and coming back by train to bicycling both ways. Still looking for a shop to promote to exceptional, I went first to Les Cacaos for a 6th cake. Chocolat Noisette seemed like a good bet, though not one that always pays off. This one had a nice thick biscuit with some toughness, reminding me of a cake from PS. For additional flavoring, this has orange, which worked for me. It's simple, but excellent, so I'm promoting them (Jun Homma will have to wait its chance).

En Vedette, Fragola

Monday or Tuesday (can't remember which), I took advantage of the fact that, during the week, the food floors kept their regular hours, so I could go after work for another new cake from En Vedette, which is heading for promotion. I've run through most of their line-up, so I went for the shape cake this time, Fragola (which is Italian for strawberry). The outside is white chocolate and the inside is lemon cream and strawberry jelly. The cake provides some texture variation, but I think it needs something more on that front. It's good, but weak for me, maybe because I'm not a big strawberry fan.

Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Vanille over Jean-Paul Hévin's Matcha

The (previous) cake-off of the week was sourced in the morning, and it's been too long since to remember what the running was, but I'm sure there was a lot of it, working on revised loops and clumps of loops. Jean-Paul Hévin's Matcha, which was one and one coming into a third cake-off, had just entered the line-up. I matched it up against Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Vanille just because it was convenient and I was not sure how easy it would be to get to other shops. I had forgotten that Matcha had gotten a warning the previous time around. This time too, I couldn't really remember why I singled out this cake. It's definitely at least good, but I didn't think the fruit, chocolate, and chocolate were harmonizing that well. I'd rather jettison the fruit, which seems. Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Vanille remained reliably great, so it picks up a second win and should get a fourth round this year.