Henri Charpentier: Sachertorte

Well, I avoided them for two years, but illness and cake lust drove me to finally go to Henri Charpentier, which was most convenient at Isetan. My avoidance was because they generally have soft boring cakes, which I bypassed this time by taking the Sachertorte (540 yen), which is a relative heavy cake, even there. And the balance with the apricot and sweetness (the chocolate probably matters, but is relatively weak, which is what I would expect) means it was unexpectedly excellent, so I can't dismiss them as uninteresting, though I've never thought they were incompetent, so it's not a shock. On my personal list, they now come on the newly arranged "Quite good" list, which is the bottom few dozen of the top several dozen Tokyo cake shops, most of which I've only sampled from a two or three times. Only one cake means I should get back there and try something else sometime relatively soon.

I haven't had any other fresh cake lately, but I got some Mohave Raisin and Walnut Brod from Andersen, which was excellent toasted and buttered (so it's not really fair to compare it to untoasted and buttered bread), and Cinnamon from Hediard, which is very heavy on the walnuts and good, but not better than my modest expectations, both again via Isetan, which is about as far as I'm up for currently.