Cake-off: Au Bon Vieux Temps' Chocolat Framboise over Bigarreaux' Le Plaisir

Friday, before a 60+ minute run trying the new Roppongi-Akasaka Loop and Akasaka East Link (yes, I've renamed all my routes again to focus on the neighborhood names on this neighborhood running course map), which I did not do perfectly but good enough that I'm ready enough for a 60 km run, when it fits in my schedule (I'm thinking in two weeks). As desert, as "pastry", I got a Gâteau Basque from Maison d'Ahni, who are visiting Isetan now. This was definitely good to the point that I would probably call it excellent if I were more into this type of baked good, which is a sweet biscuit with jam inside priced like cake.

Saturday, as indicated by the title, I tried a cake-off run, which was foolish given that I could not start until almost noon. I followed the lights and ended up at Shibuya Stn., where crossed via the 1st floor of Hikarie, which is much more reasonable that the pedestrian walks outside, in terms of crowds. The lights kept me going west rather than south so it turned out to be faster to go to Bigarreaux for Le Plaisir (where I bought the last one) before Au Bon Vieux Temps for the 1st in the list for 2nd round cake-offs, Tentation Chocolat, which was sold out. Fortunately, I have a smartphone now so I could look up this blog and see that I could use Chocolate Framboise as a backup (though that was pretty far down on list, which is only based on the order I originally blogged this cake). The total run was 14+ km and then I walked two stations to see what the Jiyuugaoka shops had for future cake-offs.

Though both these cakes were losers in the first round, I reported them as still great. Starting on them, though they were definitely good, it was not immediately obvious that they were great, so I had to adjust my strategy with the first half of each cake of alternating between small bites of each to larger bites continuously of each, which worked for recognizing their greatness. Le Plaisir is a little subtle, having lots of cream, so you need enough to get a good experience of the flavor. I'm going to go with the Framboise Chocolat, though, which is ironic in the usual way of contradicting what I just wrote earlier in the week about having a brownie bottom is a bad idea (though this has a couple thinner layers, unlike a brownie, which makes a difference).

Even though I still have to get to Tentation Chocolat as a priority, my next 2nd-round cake off will be between two former winners, which is more interesting. However, I've got a couple recent new great cakes that I'd like to do a first-round with, so I'll see whether I can manage that, even though I'm not going to be able to start any earlier than this week. On the plus side, both target shops open later and are closer, and one has multiple branches, so I can try a different location if I fail at the first.