Sadaharu Aoki: Saya (dome)

I know, I need to run without cake one day to make up for Sunday, but I've decided that the day will be Friday, since that's the hardest day to get cake. Also, I'm behind on following up on cake-off winning shops and the dome-shaped Saya at Shinjuku Isetan Sadaharu Aoki is limited to two weeks and tomorrow is the last day (though they had a good supply today at 18:15). It was not obvious that this was the cake I should get, since I've had their regular rectangular Saya (and found it great the first time and excellent the second time) and have generally had better experience with rectangular cakes than domes (though I have not checked the data to prove a significant difference). Nevertheless, Isetan should be my first choice for convenience and member discounts and I made the mistake of trying for something different at the Tokyo Midtown in my last new cake run for them and failed.

For running, it was not at all hot (actually, it started raining after I started running, so I was a little nervous because I didn't have a jacket), so I decided to do some speed training for once, since it's been so long since I've run fast (except going down-slope). I choose just +11.0 km/h as a comfortable but recently seldom used speed and did 5.0 km around the Meiji Jingu Gaien course (it's actually 1.325 km/lap, but there are 100 m markers, so four laps minus 300 m is easy to plan), which is definitely farther than I've sustained that speed for probably a number of months. By half way, I found myself in danger or being too slow: it was fast enough and long enough that I needed to pay attention to my speed and make extra effort. Actually, the first 525 m apparently was too slow, but only if my timing is accurate to the nearest second, which I'm not going to assume: the nearest tenth of a kilometers per hour is going to be close enough, I'm deciding now, so it was 11.0 km/h, safe. The full laps were 11.2, 11.4, and 11.4 km/h, and the last 500 m at 11.2 km/h, so cleared that goal.

The cake was strawberry and pistachio, which is what Saturday's cake was and shows that the right cake can make these ingredients great (at least with the right mental attitude). Texture (not overly gelatinous with a nice reasonably firm biscuit bottom) and flavor (much more intense than Saturday's) were both great. I won't hesitate to try any other dome-shaped versions they want to try on me.