Café Mikuni's: Gateau Chocolat

Managed to get to Café Mikuni's (カフェミクニズ) before they closed. All the recommended (おすすめ) cakes were gone, but they had Gateau Chocolat （ガトー・ショコラ; 650 yen), which the card said was a specialty, so I went with that. It is a very dense, firm mousse with icing. It uses the good stuff, Valrhona chocolate, and tastes like it. Just chocolate mousse is pretty plain in general but this passes the "excellent" test of being something that I would like to have again or would consider worth learning to make. That's only the second cake from there, so among the shops I'm currently calling "excellent", it is a top priory, but I think it's not such a priority that I need to go again tomorrow. Instead, I'll wait until they reopen after the holidays starting this Friday, which will be in February.

Besides to and back Mikuni's, running was just down to the Meiji Ginju Gaien course and one lap at 11 km/h. Actually, going home was closer to that than 10 km/h, so I'm swelling my high-speed part. On the other hand, the Mikini's part was half and half 8 and 9 km/h (due to having to run through a low point in Wakaba by the shortest route; it might be faster to take Shinjuku Avenue or otherwise avoid the low spot). No trouble from last Sunday's long run. However, with the holidays, I'm pretty busy with non-running things, so I'm not sure how much running I'll get in until the new year. I'll look forward to planning longer runs and keep building. I need basically marathon distance to get to and do the Shibamata History and Culture Course, so that's the immediate goal, besides visiting more-distant cake shops, but I'm not hurting for much closer ones that I haven't visited yet.