La Splendeur: Praliné Chocolat

Not a very active weekend, in terms of running and cake. Friday night, I had an event to attend so no running, just hotel-catered (I assume) mixed fruit shortcake, which is bland/inoffensive by design (if anyone objects to a particular fruit, they could pick it off).

Saturday, I ran during a window of opportunity in my schedule when a shop that would not be available on a weekday should have been open but not yet sold out (I could also have tried to run somewhere late in the afternoon). Unfortunately, La Famille choose that day to open late (14:00, as announced by the paper sign on the door), and I couldn't wait. I could have grabbed something at Seibu nearby, but I could do that on a weekday and it was not great weather for running with cake, anyway, so I decided to just cache 1 unbought cake for the next cake-off (probably Thursday).

For Sunday, which was also hot, I decided to do cycling instead. First, I went down to new shop for me, La Splendeur, in Kugahara, Ota-ku, for a first cake. There were a few parfait-like desserts, which is probably not unreasonable for the season, but only three fresh cakes. On the other hand, none were the basic Japanese staples (shortcake, mont-blanc, and some sort of milk chocolate layer wedge cake). Anyway, selection was limited but showed some effort, the shop was pleasant, and the service was good.

The cake was also good. Besides decorations, the chocolate was the sponge base and the outer mousse and the praliné was cream inside. Not disappointing, but not interesting or good enough to get me back there until in the short or medium term.

From there, I did a tour of 6 non-workday shops and Paris S'éveille to check whether any great seasonal cakes had appeared or other great cakes had disappeared. Basically, I confirmed all the same cakes as last month, including this time Monsieur Arnaud, which was missing when I visited on Tuesday late afternoon.