Esquisse Cinq: Armagnac

Took the long way (down through Meiji Jingu Gaien to Aoyama Avenue) to Ginza. Stopped at Hibiya and then walked the rest of the way to Mitsukoshi Ginza, where Frédéric Cassel had already ended their November Inspiration cakes. Checking later online, and they will have a couple specials starting Dec. 1, so maybe I'll go back tomorrow. For today, I used my planned backup, Esquisse Cinq (エスキス サンク), which I had not bought from before, although Sweet Sonobe, has, so I added them to my list of places to visit a while back. They're in Tokyu Ginza Plaza, where they have a tea salon. I got the Armagnac (アルマニャック, 750 yen).

This was definitely good, elegant, and sophisticated. The base is nuts, though I'm not sure what kind. Seemed to be a mix, but something in the walnut or cashew and something about the shape of a pistachio, which might have been what that was, though I couldn't really work out the familiar taste. The dome is a delicate shell, inside which is caramel sauce along with almost pudding. It had a certain Japanese pudding feeling, but was thankfully sweeter, so I didn't have a problem with it. Was not disappointed and the quality was high, but it wasn't something I'm interested in having again, so no huge hurry to go back. I should mention that the counter person mentioned that there is cognac in it, but like a reviewer online noted, you can't actually tell. Sorry, the lighting is not very flattering in the photo, though I suppose they never are for these night park ones.  

In running news, my elaborate schedule for the next two weeks is ruined, because I ran the 9+ km at 10 km/h (strictly, I was about 9.9 going out and just over 9.5 coming back), so my budget is completely out of wack and there is no point in doing a training run where my "sprint" is 10 km/h now. Still, that's my only 10 km/h running in the last week, so I'm not suddenly going to kill the +40% penalty for going over 9 km/h, but I might reduce it to 20% starting now, since I've been doing at least a little 10 km/h for quite a while. All this is trivia to anyone but me, of course, but I'm enjoying and able to run faster now, it seems, so that's good news. Still a ways to go on my left hand, though.