Cake-off: Théatre over Quartette

 Today was a winding, not particularly in control run (in terms of route) from shop to shop, though relatively short for a weekend run.

First I went to Fraoula, where they still did not have the cake I wanted.

Then I stopped by La Base Secrète du GAMIN, to see whether they had actual had cake, which they did have, a little of, so I guess I'll try them as a weekday run some time, if I can find a route I can keep track of (which today's wasn't). I was about 1 hour in, so I tried their Pain au Chocolat (350 yen), which was mille-feuille-type, though still fairly soft in the middle, which I think means less butter and more flour, though I've yet to make this kind of pastry. It was excellent.

Then I managed to get to Rue de Passy without overshooting too much and verified that they had the cake that I would have paired against Fraoula's, so now I know.

Then I went to Origines Cacao, where they still didn't have the first great cake I was looking for of theirs, but I forgot about the second one I was looking for. Still no customers there, but they were announcing reopening in Ginza, in Ginza Six, so I hope that works out.

I then verified that Paris S'éveille had the cake I needed before proceeding to Au Bon Vieux Temps to get Quartette, which required standing in an actual line for the first time there (more than a dozen deep, when I left, but about half that when I arrived, but slow). Mostly, people were buying little baked cakes and cookies of the gift type, which involves conversations about how many of different things they need, in how many boxes or bags, and how long they are fresh for. So it took a while.

Back at Paris S'éveille, the line for cake was not so long, but there was a long line at the register and they to had relatively more people buying gift-type package items (in the area were they usually have little baked cakes, they had packaged macaron sets). There are three possibilities: noon to 1 pm is a terrible time to go, so everywhere that isn't a creepy second-floor shop on the farthest edge of the shopping street is super busy (probably always true); White Day is coming up on Tuesday, so people are buying things, although it wasn't just men buying and they were not buying white chocolate; today is the 6-year anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor disaster, and people are sending gifts to friends and family in that region (I've never heard of such a custom, but that is the topic of the day, and if people were visiting people in a consolatory visit, these would be the kind of gifts that they would need).

Took the train back, because my experience with Quartette (as well as some other Au Bon Vieux Temps cakes) is that it's melty. So today it was about 17.5 km at an average speed of 9 km/h. I'll probably run a little farther Sunday, but not that much, so I'll have a good deal of running budget for Monday thru Friday.

The cake-off this time was easy to decide: Theatre is great but I couldn't see what was special about Quartette, though it was still good. They are both chocolate, although more so Theatre, which also has some crunch, whereas Quartette includes some white chocolate, but is just creamy (supposedly it's mousse, but it's not fluffy). In the past, the richness of Quartette impressed me, but I wasn't feeling it today.