Cake-off: Sadaharu Aoki's Mont D'or over Dalloyau's L'echiquier

Friday and worked the latest this week, so I abandoned my plan to do a 20 km run. Instead I thought I'd get a pastry from someplace new on my neighborhood courses map and finally verify the loop going by the U.S. Tokyo Embassy, which is just to go by Zuckerbackerei Kayanuma, though there are some perhaps famous-brand cafés among the new big complex, which the loop also circles around.

I decided to try Hitotsugicho Club for the pastry, really at the last minute (another shop is nearby and I didn't expect it to close early). I've never been in here. When I've gone by, I see through the window that they are a bakery, but I also see people that are dressed up, so I'm not sure whether there is bakery time and an event time. It turns out that they are a jazz club, at least on the weekend. No one was sitting at the front Friday night, they were all in the back stage area, and it was between sets, so I felt okay going in and getting something. I got what I think was labeled as Croissant Almonde, though it had been sliced open and inside was custard and I think strawberry sauce. I probably would have chosen something different if I had noticed the custard before buying, as it doesn't really fit my image of a serious pastry. The pastry was definitely good, despite the bottom being weakened by the moisture from the custard. The base almond croissant seemed excellent, so I'll look forward to visiting again even if I didn't respect (but did enjoy) this pastry. They are, after all, the best jazz club bakery that I know.

At Roppongi-douri, I suddenly decided that I wanted end my uncertainty about Saturday's cake-off by swinging by Sadaharu Aoki and asking the whether they would have the Mont D'or Saturday morning, and if not, whether the home shop would (since Isetan already told me that they were on their last day on Thursday night). At this point, I think, it's a matter of when they run out of prepared cakes/materials (it's fresh cake, in theory, but you could keep the main wet and dry parts frozen until needed). Even though the loop I want to try is tiny, I only had a few minutes of margin before the shop closed. As it happens, they checked in back for me and they would be selling Mont D'or Saturday morning and ask me whether I wanted to reserve one, so I prepaid for one cake. Saturday morning, I went out by approximately the same route (though I didn't swing by Hitotsugicho Club) and did do the loop before proceeding to Ginza Mitsukoshi to get L'echiquier from Dalloyau (I had a Jean-Paul Hévin backup in case L'echiquier was not in their limited lineup, but it was, as was a new limited spring cake that I think I'll get next week). Then I ran back to Midtown with my one cake and mostly walked the two cakes home (since running with two cake boxes is awkward and I worry about my tendinitis).

Both these cakes lost their first cake-off rounds but remained in the great list (which many didn't, so actually I have a lot fewer choices when trying to match them up for the second round). L'echiquier represents a perfect representation of a kind of light chocolate and cream layer cake, and I've been questioning inclusions of cakes have similar credentials recently as I've started the second round. This is still something I appreciate and want again (i.e., great), even if my preference tend toward other kinds of cakes, such as the Mont D'or, which has a pound cake type base and a rich ganache-like upper part creating a harmony of textures and chocolate and chestnut flavors accented with cassis.

In the evening, I shared one more cake, which looked tiny in the store but was dense, so half or a third would have been enough. I'm not sure that this counts as fresh cake, seeming more like a weekend cake, but I won't worry about that now. this is the Caramel Apple Cake from Baked, an American brand with a counter at Isetan. The plate is the usual small plate I use for individual petites gâteaux, but the cake is three dense layers, so this is a lot of cake even for two people. It was very American, very dense in terms of flour and butter, and enough apple to give a taste. The shown amount of caramel barely registers. It's good for what it is but I'll keep sticking mostly to petites gâteaux.