Cake-off: Dalloyau's Croquant Fraise over Noix de Beurre's Fraise Chantilly

Saturday, I was busy, but did a fairly long run trying to verify kilometer marks from the 11th kilometer on my neighborhood map but soon ran into a mistake, so I've spent a long time with Google's automatic route plotter fixing through the 25th kilometer, though not at that time. Instead, I ran over to Shibuya Stn. area and visited all the main cake sources and confirmed that I really don't like running around that neighborhood or really have a great need to. It shouldn't have taken 2 hours, but I did a lot of back roads going the wrong direction (though never very far) and the ones on the west side were all crowded.

Not one to learn much from experience, I spent about 3 hours running to get one cake on Sunday. I wanted Croquant Fraise from Dalloyau for a cake-off and started by looking at Ginza Mitsukoshi, but they don't handle that one, they told me. Then I jogged across town to Shibuya Toukyuu (same as the previous night), where they claimed to be sold out of that cake, despite having a full (small) case of other cakes at around noon, so I'm more likely to believe that they never had any. From there, I went to Jiyugaoka, where the main shop is, with a café, mostly along a different route from usual, since I was going from farther west, but it was not any roads I haven't used going that way before and I had no trouble getting what I wanted. Since they open at 8:30 (though not the café until 11), I should of course have just gone straight there, just I was interested in checking out Ginza Mitsukoshi to see what was there on the weekend, and then it seemed worth a stop in at Shibuya as sort of being on my way to Jiyugaoka (but I wasn't going to swing by Meguro Stn.; if I had failed at Dalloyau, I would have given up and gotten cake elsewhere in Jiyugaoka.

The priority cake in this match up was actually Noix de Beurre's Fraise Chantilly, which had managed to win it's first-round cake-off, but this time I really couldn't recognize what was great about it. It's much like a shortcake, which I'm not that into, so I've been giving it the benefit of the doubt sort of, as the best in it's class, but I think that's gone along far enough. Still, I'll keep it in for the third round and if it doesn't manage to seem great then, I'll bump from consideration. Dalloyau's Croquant Fraise, in contrast, is definitely great. I really can't think of another cake where the main component is custard (vanilla) that I think is great, but this one is great on it's own merits. It's certainly the best of the Dalloyau cakes that I've managed to get in a cake-off (most of their great cakes have been seasonal ones that haven't reappeared in the last year).

While I'm catching up, Monday was a pastry day, so I got my first from The Ritz-Carlton Café and Deli, a Pain au Chocolat. I'll note that it was after  7 pm, so they gave me 25% off (in the end, they forget initially and I wasn't sure whether the discount included pastries, since the sign I saw said cake, but they self-corrected). It's on the small side, but a proper traditional pain au chocolat, and was excellent.