Jean-Paul Hévin, Caracas

Cake came first, from Jean-Paul Hévin at Isetan: the "saisonnier" cake Caracas, which is a mild chocolate mousse in layers between vanilla and chocolate flavored biscuit, all coated in chocolate (ganache?). It was definitely excellent, but I have to stop short of calling it "great", especially next to their Mont-Blanc. Sadly, they aren't doing a different special "Mont" every month this year, but of course the regular Mont-Blanc is great anyway and is hard to resist when it is around. Still two more seasonal cakes to try at Isetan and one at the Marunouchi chocolate bar, although that one has coffee, so I'll save that one for last. Now if I could only get to Kyoto, where they have several interesting things, although Isetan also has an interesting mousse selection that I might try as eat in.

I should also mention that I went toTokyo Midtown Henri le Roux the day before, and the exclusive eat-in-only cake I thought I saw a sign for just 12 days before was already gone, so instead I had a repeat of the great chocolate cake, a good cup of Chocolat Chaud, and part of a chocolate crepe that was good, but I don't really need either crepe or the ice cream that comes with it. Never saw any information about that cake on line, so I guess I have to just stop by now and then and see what's going on over there if I ever want something like that. Something to do when I want to take a day off cake but am willing to be tempted.

Running was simply down to Meiji Jingu Gaien and two laps alternating between about 200 meters and 300 meters at 8 and 10 km/h, respectively, for a total of 1.525 km at the higher speed. It was a little difficult due to police at one entrance (that is often used) and a lot of people with cameras at the south end (which has been crowded all week), which I put down to leftovers from the Design Week event, but did not explain why there were photographers on step ladders at the 100 m mark. I assumed some celebrity was still inside and people were trying to get pictures of them, but I found out from the news later that the couple of firetrucks with the police were due to a tragedy involving an exhibit that burned, taking the life of a 5 year-old child. Sorry for the grim report, but tragedy comes from anywhere and affects us in unexpected ways, which we should be prepared for as best we can.