Cake-off: JPH: "Matcha" over Bigarreaux "Citron"

Still not running, as I've gone into a full-blown cold (after seemingly fighting something for a couple weeks but not stopping running), so I consoled myself with a cake-off sourced from Isetan. Although they did not have it back in February when I checked the main store, they had the Citron (500 yen) when Bigarreaux visited Isetan (though still no Le Plaisir, but they did not bring a very big selection of fresh cakes). This was excellent, with layers of lemony cream and sponge cake, and something that I would be interested to make (not that I've done a lot of baking laterly), but I was not feeling the greatness; since it was a fairly early evaluation (and thus a priority to revisit for cake-off), I'm not surprised that it doesn't meet my current standard for greatness.

The cake I got to compare it to was not very similar, but was something I was having a hard time matching something up to (it was a priority because I wanted to have it again before it disappeared from Jean-Paul Hévin, which supposedly will happen May 1, when they'll introduce a couple éclairs that I should evaluate). This was the Matcha (735 yen), which is a rectangular mousse layer cake. Being JPH, it's chocolate cake, and the matcha (powered Japanese green tea) obviously gives it much of it's color as well as it's name), though I'm not experienced enough with it to pick it out of the harmony. Actually, the main flavor comes from yuzu (which is citrus, which is how it relates to the Citron) and cherry, which in generally I'm not fond of, but again, I wouldn't necessarily be able to pick out of the harmony of flavors other than to note that something was working with the yuzu and matcha. This definitely is a great cake, so it easily wins this cake-off.

For Friday, I just got some bread to celebrate another work week over and a chance to rest and recover. This is their rye bread, and it was good, but not a really strong in flavor, so nothing special.