24 km to Quatre: ruban, tarte fraise, cassis

Actually, I overshot my west-east turn around and turned too soon and ended up reversing for the east-south turn, so maybe it was more like 25 km, but then I actually start earlier than I up on the maps and Google is not exact on the distance, so who knows.

It was an okay run, though I need to simplify the turns, because I'm not up for complex navigation after about half way and I might be reaching my limit, but not so much that I couldn't walk home. The end point is in front of Quatre. No pictures, sorry: photographer camera preparation failure. Also, I purchased foolishly, so no need to document that. The Ruban is 432 yen and is chocolate with praline cream (almonds). Basically, it's a standard little rectangle with layers of cake, cream, and mousse. The cake was soft sponge, though, and something harder would have been better, I think. I should eat these thing in the shop or take them home and bring their temperature down rather than eat in a hot park, but in any case, my impression is that it was not so great. Cassis (black currant) is a popular flavor in Japan, so I decided to try the so named cake for 420 yen, just as a change, but it was a mousse cylinder with a layer of fruit gelatin on top and the cylinder was kept in shape by a clear plastic ring that one could not just peal off like on the other cakes, so I had to sort of eat out from the middle, which was messy. The taste did not justify the engineering shortcomings. Finally the Tarte Fraise was a cut wedge of strawberry tart for 475 yen, and it was actually good as tarts go and I appreciated it more than the other two, but I prefer more a tartlet, so I don't need to ever go back. Maybe the bread is good, and they sold various other things, quiche, hamburgers, chocolates, and cookies. It was pretty full service.

In that neighborhood, Gakugei Daigaku (University) Station area, I recommend instead Rue de Passy for fancy French cakes (though not quite great, I've had better things there than at Quatre) or if you want something more American (if cream cheese based icing with sponge cake is American), then I recommend Matterhorn, which was doing a good business, as always. That's two shops in a row that I chose without recommendations that did not work out, so the next two should be ones that I've sampled from Isetan, which I can manage from recent visits. Nevertheless, I jotted down the name of a place I ran past for future reference, Lettre d'Amour, so maybe I will try there next as an unknown place.

Bad cake makes be crave better cake. I considered Maison du Chocolat on Aoyama Street near Omotesando Station, because I've never bought cake there, perhaps because it is expensive and the explanations generally only include common ingredients like butter, flour, and egg (but also gelatin), although they are little chocolate layer cakes. I went with Le Pain Quotidien [Which has since closed at this location, Kitaaoyama, Minato-ku] and got the raspberry chocolate mousse (ラズベリーチョコレートムース) for something like 600 yen. I know, mousse again, and the base was sponge, but it was fine, better than the earlier cakes, although not great. I think I've had better there. I'll have to try again to get great cake tomorrow perhaps from the unhelpfully named Pastry Shop. As you can see, the cake got a little beat up. There was a cardboard spacer with an ice pack, but neither the cake nor the spacer was taped down. I don't know what she had been planning to do with the fork and napkin before I stopped her.