P. Maison Douce: Trevi (?)

Got my cake from Isetan. This week (starting yesterday) P. Maison Douce is visiting from way out in Hachioji City, which is perhaps farther away than I've ever gone for cake, even when I could run 50+ km. The rain mostly held off today and I ran around Meiji Gaien. I'm down to just walking the first 0.3 km and then I ran somewhat slowly to the track and around the starting marker. Then  and did one full lap (1.325 km) at 8 km/h. The second full lap, I did 200 m each at 7, 9, 8, 7, 9, and 8 km/h, with the 8 km/h sort of high stepping, so it might have actually been the greatest work out. Then I ran to Lawson 100 for shopping, ending up not much under 8 km/h, even with a hill) and walked back. Overall, I had about 1 km walking, 2 km at 7 km/h, 3.5 km at 8 km/h, and of course 0.4 km at 9 km/h, which was a new speed to try and seems okay for my body. My weighted median speed is staying just barely in the 7 km/h category, but it's almost at 8 km/h, where I'm doing most of the running now. I'll keep decreasing the walking, but round trip to Ginza is still farther than I'm ready to do just running. I did max about 6 km this week, so I'll try maybe 8 km next week. Tomorrow, though I'll probably take off so I've got some budget for the weekend. I want to cycle back to Au Bon Vieux Temp and was going to go to Port Bonheur, but I might just got back to Isetan for Maison Douce cake and run locally again. Port Bonheur is accessible on weekdays (I've read), so no hurry. And it's about 8 km round trip.

The cake is maybe Trevi (phonetically, it is To-re-vi), which seems Italian. "Tres Vie" would be two French words, but wouldn't make any sense. It was only 440 yen before tax, I think, so quite reasonable. This time, I did look carefully at the cakes before selecting, but this was marked "Specialty" and "Award winner", so it was an easy choice. It is milk chocolate mousse flavored with orange, with some chocolate sponge inside, so it doesn't collapse, and a base of fairly large nut pieces, I think almond. This was great cake, so I do need to get back there before they become out of reach again.

Viron: Tendresse

Ran to Viron in Marunouchi. As planned, I ran faster (around 7.6 km/h for 6.1 km) and started running earlier, but still walked back (no rain this time, so just had to stop for lights and cake). They had a couple cakes I hadn't seen before and I got Tendresse for 702 yen. This is sort of a chocolate mousse dome, although not that much. More of it was Bavarian cream. I don't recall whether the outer layer of chocolate mousse or the Bavarian cream that has it, but there is passion fruit, which harmonized well. The outer layer of chocolate (?) was a little gummy, but it is still pretty hot (high 30 degC today) and I haven't gotten to dome cakes, because I'm working on nut-based biscuits. The bottom is feuillantine praliné, which is classy compared to a sponge base, so that balances it out and I have no hesitation saying that this is excellent.

Dalloyau: Tarte a la Myrtille

Walked and ran to Ginza, this time by the long preferred way, so the total trip was almost 12 km. Walked down to Meiji Gaien track and then ran, apparently really slowly (6 km/h) at least on average with the hill past Akasakamitsuke, until the rain made me pull out my umbrella and I walked to and along the Moat course to the Sakuradamon Station entrance and then ran again, this time 7 km/h average, to Dalloyau (this time I took a picture from the front entrance),



where I got Tarte a la Myrtille for 594 yen, I think. Sorry, it's facing backward, but I didn't trust myself to get it turned around without wrecking it.

Went to the park by the overpass rather than wait for Hibiya Park. It's better lit, but someone lit up a cigarette near me just after I finished my cake, so the location has it's good and bad points. The blueberry tart was, I'll say generously, excellent. This is a solid butter tart (I imagine) base. The nice thing about blueberries is that they are not overpowering. I haven't had the strawberry one yet, and I'm worried that might be too much strawberry for me. I would have gotten the regular Mont-Blanc maybe, but it was sold out (though they had the pricier seasonal one with Wakayama chestnuts that I posted about before).

Coming back, even though I was not sure of my distances, I knew I was going slow, so I worked in a little more running (1.5 km), again averaging 7 km/h (no steep hills), before walking the rest of the way home. It's good to expand my running distance, but I'd like to at least do it at a faster speed than my walking, so I'll try to step it up tomorrow night.

Origines Cacao: Bacchus

As planned, I did not run this weekend. Instead, I baked a new cake recipe that I had been collecting ingredients for and did my first cycling for a long time. My knee seems to be okay for it.

The ride was out to Jiyugaoka to Origines Cacao to check whether they are "near-great" and ended up being about a 26 km round trip. I timed the first part was doing about 14 km/h, trying to go the equivalent of a walk as far as effort. It gives me a benchmark. Supposedly wind resistance makes speeding up on a bicycle more difficult for running, which I don't know how I'll handle, but I'm treating this as the equivalent of one-fourth the 7 km/h running distance, as far as my budget (I'm rescaling my budget to 7 km/h running from 6 km/h walking, though that information is not so useful to anyone else).

At Origines Cacao, I struggled to find something that looked good that I hadn't had, so I went with the promoted new one, Bacchus, for 594 yen, which is a chocolate cake with cognac and apricot. It's good, being layers of soft sponge with liquor and chocolate frosting, but maybe because chocolate layer cake is too much like what I've had plenty of in the US, it's not really so exciting. Sorry, it was so bright, I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of (and I forgot the shop again, as usual).

This is not the cake I'm looking for, so Origines Cacao goes back in the "excellent" list. That only leaves me five near-greats, whereas I wanted at least doubt the great, of which currently I have four, although if Dalloyau dropped a level, that would work out, so I keep working on the bottom of the near-greats until I get them up to where I want (half the number of cakes of the greats) before I try to update them.

At least the croissant from Au Bon Vieux Temps was excellent. They have delicious looking baked goods, but I don't think I've gotten anything before.

I also got another chocolate from Henri le Roux on Saturday, Madagascar: This was was excellent too.

Learned/got experience with a lot in my last cake attempt, Essor, I think it's called (I don't have the page with the real French name, just the phonetic Japanese). There was nothing that I did well, but I got the general idea about several parts. The result was pretty ugly, so no photos and I ate the evidence.

Essor has two layers of hazelnut biscuit, which was okay, but a little underdone because I used an upside-down tart form on top of a silicon mat because I don't have a 14.4 cm diameter round Flexipan (nor am I able to find out how I could get one, since even the company doesn't list that size, though it would probably would be about 5000 yen, which is more than I want to pay). For the (gelatin) hazelnut Bavarian cream disk, I completely failed to whipped up the cream, and splattered most of it around the kitchen: the new balloon whisk with the new mixer is proving difficult to use. However, it tasted good, and wasn't overly gummy (though would be different with more and proper whipped cream). This time I needed a 12.5 cm Flexipan (also unavailable), so I used a right-side-up one with some plastic wrap, which was a little leaky but worked well enough. The　(gelatin) orange concentrate and liquor layer, whose phonetic French name I can't figure out besides the orange part, really didn't like my substitute for the 12.5 cm Flexipan and broke into pieces when I tried to separate it from the form bottom (also, I had to boil down my first attempt and try again, as the gelatin and concentrate separated during freezing). This was gummy and too strong to sample by itself, but actually was fine in the cake, except for being ugly. Finally, I had to submerge/embed these layers in creme chocolat-blanc d'orange, again with a little gelatin; I tried chilling everything, but still had a splatter problem, so I did it by hand and didn't whip it enough (I don't really know what 6-minute whip looks like). The 15 cm ring form, which I did buy, leaked, but that might be due to the cream being too thin. It formed a solid cake okay and was good, though I'm not really that interested in cake that tastes that orange, so I won't be trying this again. I still have some orange concentrate, but maybe I'll use it and the liquor for macaron filling. Very educational, though. Now I just need to learn to whip cream, since it's half the next cake, Gateau Fraise.

Échiré Maison du Beurre: Misérable

Went to Marunouchi for a third time trying to see the same new shops, and actually found Échiré Maison du Beurre without a line, though of course mostly sold out late on a Friday. The cake they had was Misérable (which seems like a bizarre name for a cake, but it's apparently a standard French cake), for 756 yen, since no mille-feuille, what was recommended. I didn't really mind.

It was definitely good, being (vanilla?) buttercream between pretty standard almond biscuit, though pretty sweet. Very buttery, so I'm not sure that there actually is vanilla, since the point is to show off the butter, that being their specialty, and it did that.

Felt pretty good about finally getting something new worth having from a new shop on my list/map, but I was too fast going them and am now 1% over budget, having run about 4 km at 8 km/h, faster than I intended, with 6 km of walking. Because I ran a lot during the week and not much last weekend, I've got nothing left for tomorrow, so I'll just have to stay in and work on the next cake, as well as brownies, macarons, and canele (for surplus egg yokes, or I can try making brownies without egg whites). Sunday I may also skip running, since I still won't be able to get far, and instead cycle to Jiyugaoka.

Mont St. Clair: C'est la Vie

Today, I repeated Sunday's experience of not getting cake from the same two unsampled shops (it would have nice for P. le R Cinq to tell me that they were closed holidays rather than just telling me that they were open Monday thru Friday when I stopped by last, but maybe they meant only Mondays thru Fridays, not promising to be open any particular Mondays thru Fridays). Also, the rain continues, so no actual running, just 7.6 km of walking on that particular trip, returning by train with cake-making goods. I don't include a shorter, less-intense but more shopping-intensive trip in the afternoon, which included giving Mont St. Clair at Isetan another chance by buying the C'est la Vie, for 581 yen. Supposedly a specialty, it has pistachio cream inside sandwiching chocolate cream with raspberry. Could only taste a weak raspberry. Everything else seemed to get canceled out, which is not my idea of harmony. It was still okay, but a waste of ingredients. Looks like I won't need to worry about visiting them again.

In baking news, the macaron shells seriously cracked again, which didn't used to be a problem: I'm getting worse, maybe over mixing. I can try shortening the waiting time. I played with baking shorter but using higher heat at the beginning, which I didn't do last time, when I'm not sure what I did, but not that.

Mont St. Clair: Mont St. Clair (Isetan exclusive)

Let's start with the cake: I made a mistake and got the Mont St. Clair from Mont St. Clair, which is an advertised Isetan exclusive this week. It is also coffee buttercream with a layer of coffee gelatin, which is as vile as it sounds (to those who do not like coffee, although the gelatin looked nasty up close even before I tasted it) and 582 yen. It's my mistake, so I can't blame them, but I do not trust them for having more than one cake with coffee in it on display, which makes me doubt that they are the shop for me. Still, I should give them another chance while they are at Isetan, since Jiyugaoka is a tough distance for me right now and I haven't posted anything else on them.

The running was okay. It was relatively crowded at Meiji Gaien with people going faster than me in groups, including sight-limited people running with guides, who I often see there, and no where else. It was raining a little, but not unpleasantly. Walked 1.7 km, ran 4 km, with 1.5 of that at 8 km/s and the rest at 7 km/m, alternating first 100 m and then 200 m and once 300 m, although it was hard not to go too slow or too fast, respectively: I need a bigger difference for real interval training, but I'm still just trying just slowly increase minimum speed running.

In fairness, I should also review my own cake. This is number 4 for my exploration of nut biscuit based cakes, Fraise aux Roses. Actually, the pictured one has been frozen once, the strawberries were frozen to begin with (when I made it), and the butter cream was not that fresh by the time I got around to assembling it, although it did not turn out to be had hard except for using a lot of bowls (I need more mixing bowls).

I don't recommend this cake because the jelly topping, which is delicious and sort of simple, dominates, so you can't really taste the pistachio biscuit (and pistachio powder is triple the cost of almond powder, and pistachio paste is double that), even though it is about twice as thick as it should be. I couldn't really taste the rose from the rose buttercream (which was pretty delicious to begin with and still seemed okay yesterday, when I took this picture) and I substituted cherry liqueur for rose liqueur in the imbibage (syrup for spreading on the cake), because I had a deadline and didn't want to search any more. I make these cakes mostly to learn about the process and the components, so I'm not so disappointed that I'll probably never want to make it again. The next one is even more gelatinous, so I need to get some real cake forms or kludge a really short version using my 14 cm tart forms again.

Also, I've figured out the timing to get my mini-canelé made with the silicone mold nice and brown uniformly without burning the bottoms (tops when baking). Now I have to figure out if that's the way I really like these and try buttering the sides more.  Unlike with the metal brioche forms I was using, no trouble getting these out, but not as chewy on the outside from butter and they have a higher surface-area to volume, so I actually be using more butter rather than less, I think. Of course, I could try beeswax, but I'm not ready to go there yet.

Au Bon Vieux Temps: Marjolaine

Did a round trip to Au Bon Vieux Temps in Oyamadai (well, Todoroki, actually, but the nearest station is Oyamadai Station, also in Todoroki but next to Oyamadai, so let's go by that): 25 km. Kept up a good pace, definitely 6+ km/h and not that much slower coming back. Happily, my feet didn't turn red, unlike the big walk last Thursday, so I did something right. Not so sure about my knees yet, crossing my fingers, but I plan to rest tomorrow anyway.

Got the Marjolaine, for, I forget how much, around 500 yen, anyway. 496 yen? They keep their regular individual cakes small, more than do the big international brands, not high priced, unlike their frozen deserts. This was a great cake, and the best Marjolaine that I've had, I think. Not sure whether they made Japonaisemasse as the biscuit, as it is not baked that dark, but it's hazelnut dark and tastes right. They went with powered sugar on top and included a layer nut slivers in the creme praline. The ganache layer is pretty thin, but seems a good choice for keeping the chocolate from taking over from the praline.

Finally, a near-great shop lives up to its designation, so I'll give it a new color on the map and mark it and other ones as such when it's convenient. Not sure when I'll get back to this shop, as it's a good distance, but if the weather ever clears up (typhoons keep bring in rain), I can take the bicycle out for more trips to these farther ones.

Dalloyau: Nakayama Chestnut Mont-Blanc

I must confess, that I had some pain from the previous run, which was only 2 km, but with 20+ km of walking. So I should limit how fast I ramp up my running and even my total. Even taking two days off, I felt at some point a little bit of the same soreness in my knee today, when I walked 8.7 km (I've decided to quit timing walking since I've moved on to worrying about my running), and 4 km of running averaging 7.6 km/h, which may be too much/fast at this point.

For cake, I did the rounds around the Tokyo Station, more than I needed too. First I went to
Echiré Maison du Beurre, which had 20 people in line, and then to Le R. Cinq, despite it being closed on weekends, as clearly noted on my own map. So I just went to Dalloyau (but stopping to check Frédéric Cassel) and got the seasonal Nakayama Chestnut Mont-Blanc, which was 702 yen.

This was a mild, creamy chestnut paste; in the center was a layer of sponge cake (like the base), which I was not expecting. Still, it was excellent, I suppose, even if the result is rather standard tasting as cake, although not of mont blancs.

This bird was posing so much in Hibiya Park, that I had to take a picture.

Jean-Paul Hévin: Mont-Poire Yuzu

No running but got some cake from Jean-Paul Hévin, Mont-Poire Yuzu for 635 yen, along with the regular Mont-Blanc again, and Tablette Géante Noir for 523 yen, both without tax.

The cake was great. The newly posted one, Mont-Poire Yuzu, has yuzu-flavored pear pure and was great, despite not having the thick almond meringue base. The tablet chocolate, which has big hazelnuts was good, but wasn't really needed.

Bigarreaux: Marius

Took a half-day off and walked and ran to Bigarreaux. As usual, started off too fast and averaged 6.2 km/h in the walking part. 3 km in, I "ran" 2 km at 7 km/h. Now it's very natural for me to run the same speed I walk. No problem yet. Not sure whether I'll raise my distance before replacing my walking with running, but I'm ready to introduce 8 km/h running. Coming back I just walked, averaging 5.8 km/h, so I'm just going to pretend all the walking was at 6 km/h, in terms of my budget, which I haven't used up but will be busy the next couple days (but will definitely get some cake in anyway).



At Bigarreaux, where I ate in; I had Marius for 540 yen. It tasted how I should have expected, so I should learn to analyze and choose more wisely, since it was not my thing. It's three layers of biscuit (probably almond), too layers of cassis (blackcurrant) buttercream, and one layer of apricot gel. It was good and well constructed, but I'm not that into that fruity a cake. Actually, the apricot was too weak for me (I didn't read the card that far when I was there and wasn't sure it wasn't mango): two layers apricot, one layer cassis might have been better for me.

That's 0 for 3 in my attempt to introduce near-great shops into my evaluations. Of course, I'm working my way up the from the bottom by virtue of looking at the ones I have the fewest cakes from, since they are all earlier drop-outs from my original potentially great list. Eventually, I'll have to weaken the criterion, but I'll try a few more first.

Frédéric Cassel: Mont Blanc Jewel

Went to Ginza, walking the first 1 km, then jogging 3.6 km to the edge, with the rest walking. Actually, the first kilometer was closer to 7 km/h than the initial "running", which averaged about 6.8 km/m, but the 6 km of walking averaged 6 km/m.

Slowly expanding my running rather than adding much weekly distance, which is about 60 km/week. Don't have the budget for much run tomorrow and spent enough on cake today, so I'll probably take tomorrow off and uses a less direct route to Bigarreaux Thursday (assuming the rain doesn't discourage me).

Had expected to go to Dalloyau, but stopped in at Frédéric Cassel, and they had one of their autumn specials, Mont Blanc Jewel. Besides the obvious chestnut cream and the candied (so some degree) chestnut cream on top with a little whipped cream, there was relatively little whipped cream inside, which was instead red currant compote (I had guessed blue berries actually, though not a strong separate taste) on a little doom of (baked) meringue on top a tart base. It's a tart base, but warning: it's pasted down pretty firmly, so you aren't going to pick it up easily. This was great, a "harmony" of chestnut and currant, as they claim, which does not surprise me at 864 yen. Taking a picture at a park in the rain, so a little cramped. A better picture here.

Tried to make creme au beurre rose as one part of a cake (fancy cake number 4). Seems pretty easy, except still not that great at the Italian meringue. Got a lot of rose syrup now,, though and no other recipes. Need to get a macaron book.

Igrekplus [Marunouchi]: Meilleur

Walked 6 km to get some Rose syrup (though perhaps could have gotten somewhere else), and then to Ygrekplus where I got Meilleur(e/s/es) for 600 yen. As the name (as I'm guessing) suggests, this looked like the best I could do there. It has tonka beans, which seem to be popular now, and I could taste them and they added to the texture, but did not make it more than a standard frosted chocolate layer cake, although the top was fudge-like rather than a buttercream frosting. I did not have any particular recommendation for the shop, so this was just a matter of making sure I wad not overlooking anything in Marunouchi, which is relatively convenient for jogging. The cake was good, I suppose, but I would rather eat other things, so I don't expect to ever be back.

The 6 km there was about 6 km/h, and the 6 km back was about 5 km/h, walking. Parking for the Marunouchi Building seems problematic and anywhere, it was threatening rain, so I didn't take the bicycle. That experiment will have to wait for another time. Could be Thursday, but only the weather forecast changes

I forgot to blog that I tried Henri le Roux's Sarrasine chocolate, which has, I think, ganache made with soba-infused cream. Like other chocolates I've had from there, it was excellent.

Yu Sasage: Symphanie

Took a long walk, 23+ km round trip, to Yu Sasage at a good speed (little over 6 km/h going, a little under 6 km/h coming back). I'm tired, but the leg seems sound. However, I've hit 101% walking/running load relative to my peak as of 1 week ago and I didn't exercise last Sunday, so I don't have the budget for a full-speed round trip Nihonbashi, which is my goal, so I either need to take the train back (which could be justified if I buy perishables) or take the bicycle out for the first time in a while and figure out how to count that in my budget (in terms of calories, its about 1/4 running for slow riding, supposedly, but calories don't really capture the physical strain, which is what I'm after).

Unfortunately, Yu Sasage let me down. I'd already had both the specialties displayed, and there were a lot of new things, maybe because they were coming off a holiday, but I chose one of the couple other things. This has mascarpone cheese, cream, and an earl grey biscuit. It started off good, and I was considering whether it was excellent. It had a kind of fruity flavor, in addition to the tea. For some reason, though, by the second half, the fruity sweetness was not working for me. Honey in that top layer? Not sure, and not sure honey would be a problem, but ultimately, I can't say this is good. It mostly worked or worked most of the way, so I'll say it was "ok". Maybe it just caught me at a bad time or it needs a particular beverage; I had water, but since it's already tea, I wouldn't think it needed anything else to balance it. It's supposed to already be a balance. Sorry, forgot again to get a shop picture. And cake fell over, so it got a little smushed.

Glycine: Grenoble

Despite some rain, went to P. La Glycine in Meguro, near the river. I walked 9 km at 6 km/h and ran 3 km at 7 km/h, so still super slow. Could feel the running in my problem leg area, but seems okay. Still, I think I'll take a day off tomorrow and go out early Saturday and Sunday.

Ate in, outside under an awning. I had the Grenoble for 550 yen. It was good. It's a chocolate walnut tart with an almond crust, caramel, and fresh cream on top. It didn't really go beyond the base ingredients, and the caramel was the bitter almost coffee-like kind, which was okay eating it, but did not help and left a slight unwelcome aftertaste.

In the evening I made Italian-style meringue macaron shells. Seem okay but once again I probably didn't get enough air out, as they are rather hollow and bumpy.

Only remaining Excellent shop on my list I need to visit for a third cake is Chez Cima, which has a counter at Isetan. Before that, I want a sixth from Yu Sasage, which is expected to be on the Near-Great list.

Del'Immo (Akasaka): Royal Milk Tea

Went for a short run to conserve my budget, but have since found out that my first choice for tomorrow, Yu Sasage, is closed. The second choice was Tron Coni, also closed. Fine, I'll go to La Glycine, which had its summer vacation last week.

Anyway, I also went short today because I'm adding running (broadly speaking). I went only 5.8 km, 1.9 km of it "running", all at about 6 km/h, so really pointlessly slow running, other than to build up slowly. I'm way behind from last weekend of not running or walking much, so I'll aim for 3 km running 7 km/h tomorrow (not sure I have that much control), as well as another 9 km walking comfortably fast. Saturday, I'll try to hit the reopening Yu Sasage, with is more than 20 km round trip, and then Sunday I'll make up whatever deficit I have left (taking Friday night off) to get myself up to 110% of a week ago. I ran last Monday, so I can still head to Ginza next Monday, or save it for a long trip Tuesday (it took so long just to plan tomorrow, I'm not going to figure out Tuesday's target tonight).

Cake! The cake was Royal Milk Tea from Del'Immo (the Akasaka branch) for 580 yen, which is called phonetically "Early Grey" in Japanese, so the counter person had to confirm with me, since apparently she hadn't actually read the English on the cards (just like I didn't bother to read the Japanese). This is majority mousse, with chocolate and earl grey, maybe bottom and top, with a fairly solid chocolate base. I passed up the high-chocolate specialty of the "chef", since I just had chocolate cake, and was rewarded with great (but lighter) cake. Very nice and an excellent shop. The macaron was not bad (they also sell macarons there).

Running and walking: Jean-Paul Hévin, Tonka

And, finally, I did some running again (well, I jogged a little down a slope last Wednesday, just because it was so steep that it was too hard to walk). Had some business around Shinjuku Station, so stopped at Jean-Paul Hévin at Isetan for Tonka. No seasonal cake: I need to check the homepage. Or, maybe like Frédéric Cassel, they don't do some specials at the beginning of the week. Tonka was the last regular cake at that shop, although I need to get back to the Marunouchi shop.

Total, I only did about 3.7 km, using the Meiji Jingu Gaien for one and a quarter laps. There was some slow (0.3 km) 5 km/h walking (I'm guessing, since I messed up the timing), 2 km at 6 km/h, 0.4 at 7 km/h, and 0.3 at 8 km/h. In the middle, I jogged 0.7 km at 7 km/h; so I learned I can walk faster than I thought and jog slower than I thought. I'm counting jogging double, since it's a lot more stressful, so I won't be converting to 60 km of jogging a week so soon, but my budget should still allow 5.4 km tomorrow, jogging slowly about 1.7 km of it, and 24 km of walking Thursday at 6 km/h while still  leaving some budget for the weekend. Last weekend was pretty irregular, so I need to smooth the lumps out, which means I might not be so strict about following the budget. Now I'm actually still lower for the last 7 days than the previous 7 days, whereas I'm allowing a 10% increase per week (generously including the current normal non-recreational walking in that budget, which has been getting faster as I recover), so if I suddenly get to 120% of one week ago, it's not a crisis. Maybe I should smooth over a longer period in calculating.

Cake! Cake was the Tonka (chocolate mousse and biscuit harmonized with tonka bean), as I said, which is just under 700 yen. It was great! I really love chocolate, I guess, so Jean-Paul Hévin always rates far above other shops with me, to the extent that I should just call them "Top".

Ginza walk: Dalloyau, Narutokintoki Murasaki Tart

Been a while. I was confirming that Tokyo is the best place for cake. Did some long slow walking there (16.6 at about 4.5 km/h), but today the first half averaged above 6.5 km/h. I'm going to drop keeping track of half-kilometers/hour speeds at the next update of my chart to track my running budget, probably when my average exceeds 6.5 km/h in general for a total of 9.2 km both ways (skipping a lot of shopping walking).

Frédéric Cassel's last announced special (not the monthly) was not visible there at 5 pm on Monday. I suspect that normal specials only past until Sunday or they run out of ingredients, not sure which. Anyway, Aux Bacchanales is close and is the highest priority of the near-greats that I'm going to set (because I've only blogged 4 cakes), so I thought I'd get a head start on catching them up, but it turns out they gave up on patisserie stuff in June. Too bad, because they had a couple cakes I really liked. Ended up going back to Dalloyau and got the Nautokintoki Muraski Tart, which is a seasonal sweet potato tart for 324 yen. I don't think Nautokintoki is normally purple and there were non-purple chunks inside, so I suspect the purple part is normal Japanese sweet potato, not the Narutokintoki. It's nice for a change and as sweet potato tarts go, I'll say it's excellent.

Bien-être: Mille-Feuille au Raisin

I went to Glycine without confirming their schedule and found them closed on Wednesday, so I swung up to Bien-etre where I ate in (hidden by the door on the left, but there are a few tables and a counter), though just one other customer eating and having tea at 8 pm on a Wednesday. I walked far and fast, 13.2 km averaging 6.2 km/h, so I'm completely off schedule/over budget. I didn't have any trouble then or after, though, so expect an acceleration of the walking schedule (although I'm busy now, so it may average out over the next few days). Anyway, maybe it's time to try introducing some running again, just a kilometer to start, next week, as I confirm I can manage faster walking regularly.

The cake was Mille-Feuille au Raisin for 540 yen. I was in the mood to like this cake, and it's the best grape mille feuille I've ever had, from a candidate excellent shop, so I won't feel too guilty saying it's excellent, even if I'm not in a strong need for more cakes like this one.