Cake-off: Très Calme's Mont-Blanc over L'Abricotier's Le Piemont

Last day of the month and a Saturday. Can't ride a bicycle due to right arm and shouldn't type much, but tried even longer walks to see whether I'm ready to start running next month. My foot seems good enough.

Two walks: 8+ km to L'Abricotier to get Le Piemont (oddly, their signature cake wasn't out yet, even after 11 pm. They were just getting to putting out the Sicile. Came back by JR Chuuou line, so still had some walking to do at both ends. After lunch, walked to Très Calme by not the best route and got their Mont-Blanc, which is also their top cake with me and generally. Came back by a cheap but not close way, this time Toei lines, I think.

This was a battle of underdogs, both in terms of shops that are on the way down on my list and also cakes that lost the first round. Le Piemont is chocolate and nut cream, was well as chocolate and nuts, so good stuff. Still like it a lot, but not sure I need to keep in on the great list; will have to review in the third round. The Mont-Blanc was in a similar situation, though in the end I felt that it had a distinctive taste that I wanted to keep, so it remains safe, as well as the winner.

Yesterday, I failed: F. Cassel still did not have a cream puff for me and I've run out of pastries at Dalloyau (under my restricted definition, which calls certain things sweet breads and leaves them for a different evalutation, basically the completely soft stuff).

Thursday, I was successful at getting a pastry from Libertable for the first time. This was Feuilletée au Chocolat, where the first part just means a layered-type pastry, so pretty generic as a name. It sort of combines the best of croissant and pain au chocolat, so I completely approve and am calling it a great pasty. They are now my top priority for pastries. I might have tried to stop by there when I failed yesterday, but it was already going to be my longest walk of the month, so I didn't want the detour coming back from Ginza.

Le Pommier, Pour Moi

Back again to Isetan today for cake, this time for a second cake from Le Pommier, which I had one good cake from previously. This time I went for the pistachio mousse cake, Pour Moi. I like pistachio mousse, but then I've had enough to get critical. This one was up front about having raspberry jelly, which put me off some what. Actually, it had quite a bit. But in fact, the textures matched when and the flavors also did not have trouble harmonizing (raspberry sometimes is overpoweringly sweet in cakes). Not sure what the white thing is even after eating it. It's not white chocolate, it was more like hard candy but not. Like yesterday's, which was an excellent cake, which bumps the shop up to potentially quite good, so I'll try to get back there for a third cake while they are at Isetan, but not tomorrow.

For excercise, I tried walking farther. Went as far as across from Akasaka Palace on the neighbhor route, taking more than 30 minutes to reach Lawson 100 for groceries. It was enough that I could feel it in my right foot but not enough for it to linger, so I hope to try farther tomorrow to get a pastry from Libertable (I've had three weekday cakes already, so even if I fail, I won't be too disappointed).

Blondir, Nostagie

Visited Isetan for the last day of Blondir, which I had down as a good shop based on one cake. I picked Nostagie, marked as a hot seller, I think, which is like a lemon bar under whipped cream, broadly speaking. Of course, the bar part is almond (and lemon) and the maybe the whipped cream is whipped white chocolate, since that's an ingredient. On top, is probably the cinnamon. It was an interesting combination and excellent, though I'd like the bottom to be easier to cut. In that situation, turning it on it's side is the best option. With one good cake and one excellent cake, they qualify as potentially quite good, though that's a bloated category and I haven't reached the point that getting them all up to 3 cakes so that I can figure out which to drop.

For exercise, I tried walking the nearest neighborhood route, which was doable without apparent damage. Of course, it's less than how much I walk just commuting, but it's non-stop, so it is a kind of test of how my feel are healing. With my arm sprained, I can't jog anyway, but I can walk without jarring my lower arm.

Tadashi Yanagi, La Deux Chocolat

Monday, they told me my arm was not broken (no surprise) and otherwise just gave me drugs and told me to come back to reception if I want more. Actually, I have the same leftover drugs from previous visits for other ailments. Doctors, often not very helpful, and/or sprains, not getting the respect that they should, or so I've heard, so I'm going to try to be careful even once the pain subsides.

In the evening, I went back to Tadashi Yanagi for a third cake, La Deux Chcolat (I'm interpreting). This is a brownie under chocolate mousse with orange (I think; they have dozen of cakes on their website, but not this one). I was not optimistic really. It has structural advantages, but a hard brownie (best as a cake base) is not really a good brownie, so I've yet to have this type of cake work out. It was still good, but that's all. With two excellent cakes and one good, Tadashi Yanagi seems to be quite good, and so three cakes is enough for at least a year.

Cake-off: Yu Sasage's Perfum over L'Abricotier's L'Abricotier

Short post. Got Yu Sasage's Perfum  for a cake-off versus L'Abricotier's L'Abricotier. Unfortunately, its not really up to the vibration of cycling. Both cakes definitely great, but I appreciated the rose taste over the fruit taste, so Perfum took it.

Next day, I went back to  Yu Sasage and got a Saint Honoré Ananas Citron Vert, which is self-explanatory if you speak cake (otherwise, the fruits are pineapple and lime), which got messed up worse than even Perfum, when I fell over, spraining my right forearm. It was still good and should look like this photo from the shop Facebook page.

Bien-être, Chou à la Crème

Thursday, I went to F. Cassel again, but again failed to find their Chou à la Crème and settled for a ninth pastry from Dalloyau, this time the Danish/Pastry à la Crème (I need to go back to figure out which it was in the Latin character version of the name), which had the Japanese name Custard Danish, I think. This is quite substatial, more than many cakes. From the beginning, there was no doubt that it was good quality, but I wasn't actually that interested in eating so much custard, so it was a slog by halfway through, as it's a big pastry (sorry, no sense of scale in the picture, but I would say that it was a little wider than my hand is) and the custard was almost 2 cm thick. And yet, because there was so much of it, in the end, I had to concede that this was excellent and that the custard was excellent and distinctive from custard that one would find in, for example, a Chou à la Crème. Fitting for a pastry, this custard had a buttery or butterscotch accent. So, I seem to be learning to respect custard more.

On that note, on Friday, when I went to Bien-être for cake (an iffy proposition anywhere after work on a Friday), I chose the Chou à la Crème over the melon (?) shortcake. In keeping with counting this as cake, I eat pieces after cutting it with a sharp knife (which makes a different for the texture). And this was also excellent, with its different kind of pastry crust and different kind of custard than the previous day (also smaller and cheaper).

Libertable: Charm

Before the rain got worse again, I cycled to Akasaka to bring the last of the excellent shops up to 5 cakes blogged. Since the Grace was not available (I wonder whether they alternate, since it was yesterday, though it could have sold out, of course), I went with Charm, which is a fairly standard mont-blanc with a fairly nonstandard ingredient for other ships, porcini (mushroom). I couldn't really identify the porcini (though it is supposed to be nutty, so, used correctly, I probably shouldn't detect it in chestnut without a lot more experience with porcini) and it was fairly standard in construction, meringue base under whipped cream, under chestnut paste, but it was perfect for me as far as what I like in a mont-blanc, so I'll say that it was great.

In other happy news, although I remain committed to no running this month, my commute walk was pain-free (I might have felt a ghost sensation at the end of one pass, but not pain). I might start doing some basic training to build up my ankles starting this weekend and soon try farther walking. My hands will be happy to get away from bicycling, as my wrists and fingers aren't that strong).

Satsuki: Tokyo Super Cheesecake

Monday, I tried again for the cream puff of F. Cassel at Mitsukoshi but no luck (of course, I could probably pre-order, but where's the sport in that), so instead I got the one available new pastry from Dalloyau, the Belle des Pommes (I'm assuming). This has apple and butter [update: no it was custard, just it was diluted by apple juice maybe], perhaps (I didn't notice the latter until the end) inside a flower/bell-shaped pastry. Actually, I put this in my bag and squished it, but it opened up again without much difficulty, so I certainly approve of the structure. In some ways, it seems simpler than other standard pastries, but it achieved it's goal and I can say that it was excellent.

On Tuesday, I caught the headliner (of this post), Satsuki, who was visiting Isetan (not that they are very far away, between Yotsuya Sta. and Akasaka Mitsuke Sta). They are extremely famous, but not for anything that I'm impresses me. Still, I've reached the point where I want to give second chances to good shops that visit Isetan, so I did. This time I got the Tokyo Super Cheesecake. The dirth of cheese makes it super, apparently, which is to say, this is the kind of cheesecake with lots of flour, so it's a cheese-flavored cake. Though not what I want in cheesecake, it is consistent with their line of fruit short cakes (this too had fruit inside, fig) and I enjoyed it, as it was dinitely good, but I'm not likely to get back to them soon, which is just as well given the prices (I stayed away from the high-end ones, which use high-end brand fruit).

Sadaharu Aoki: Citron Praliné

Went to the main Sadaharu Aoki, in Marunounich for two and ate in. They had a couple cakes that I wanted, though only one was out when I entered, so I chose that one as an individual, Citron Praliné.

We also had the Dégustation Royal, which included a couple bites (that I had one of) of the other cake that I was instrested in, the Saint-Marc Praliné. The Citron Praliné was of their usual standard, excellent. The Saint-Marc Praliné was good enough that I still want to have a full piece to rate it, but am not in a hurry.

The drinks were also good, of course, Ceylon Citronelle and Special Aoki Pomme Caramel, I think.




in

Cake-off: En Vedette's En Vedette over Ryoura's Soyeux

Had less time than I originally thought, but still was able to squeese in a cake-off early Saturday of a busy weekend. Since B-E's was not available, as I discovered Friday night, I had to change plans but I stuck with first-round cakes, including Ryoura's Soyeux, though I sourced it from the Tokyo Midtown Dean & Deluca rather than going all the way out to Yoga. First, though. I had to get En Vedette's En Vedette, but they open at 10 am and it was somewhat closer, even missing some of the intended turns. This cake, especially, is delicate for a bicycle ride, but it was mostly intact to make it home. For the photo, I flipped it to the back. Not sure why I put the V upside down when I moved it.

These two cakes are rather similar, being mousse inside a solid coating with fruit inside of that. The pistachio and red fruit of Soyeux was still definitely great and not clearly inferior to the chocolate and rum raisin of En Vedette, but the later was a rarer beast, so I chose it. Both are recent cakes and I'm not worried about them disappearing, so I probably won't get around to a second round for either of them first a few months.

Tadashi Yanagi: Douceur d'Été

Decided to try for Tadashi Yanagi agian by going on the correct day to Shinjuku Takashimaya. This is a second cake, at least in the current reporting, and a new cake, so definitely not one I had pre-blog: Douceur d'Été ("sweet of the summer", I assume) this time, which is a harmony of lemon cream and milky cream (whatever that is; sounds awful but wasn't) several caramelized hazelnuts inside and decaration including chocolate and almond slices. Lemon cream can be very nice, if fairly intense, which this was and the hazelnuts were a nice surprice. So now I have two shops that I've had two excellent cakes from that deserve a try-out for the excellent shop list, which has openings, not even including a couple that probably should be demoted.

Cycling, I visted Bien-être again and found that the pistachio chiboust that I saw just over a week ago and wanted for a cake-off tomorrow has already evolved into another cake. Like last time, the window for this cake was very small. I'm disappointed, but wanted new cakes from them, so I'll get there again soon anyway. Still need to figure out what the cake-off will be instead.

Pierre Gagnaire: La Panthère Verte

Thursday night, I went down to Pierre Gagnaire in the ANA Intercontental in Akasaka. This is a fifth cake from a cake in my excellent list, leaving just one to bring up to five. I decided to try the La Panthère Verte, which has been there for at least a little while, along with other matcha (powered green tea) versions of cakes. La Panthère seems to be their signature cake, though I've never had it (and it wasn't available Thursday evening). Besides green tea, there were beans, as a another traditional Japanese sweets touch. Both aspects were fine, though not more than that. The cake was much more gelatinous than I expected, dominated overly by the outer layer that is holding the design. I still give it credit for concept and quality at what it was, so it was good, but I'm less interested in trying La Panthère now. Still, they'll stay in the excxellent group for a six cake.

P. Ikeda: Cassiser

Tuesday, I went to Shinjuku Takashimaya looking for something different and got a cake from Patisserie Ikeda via the Patisseieria, which may be their only Tokyo distributor. They count as a neighborhood cake shop, so I felt obligated to try them, though nothing looked very appealing. Maybe I should have gone with cheesecake again, but I choose Cassiser, or at least that is my guess at the spelling, if there is a French spelling. It's cassis mousse and cherry custard cream. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, it was not any better than it looked. Not that it tasted bad, it was ok, but what seemed like a not very good idea was not improved by the execution, though I'm not an audience for the this cake, so this shop and its cake might be fine for someone else.

Exercise was about an hour of riding over the more extreme parts of yesterday's shadowing of the east Yotsuka neighborhood course, though in the reverse direction (so the worst slope I could do going up), plus one lap around Akasaka Palace Grounds. Then it was push-ups at home.

Wednesday, I cycled again, toward Ginza, stopping by P. Shima to verify that they still had the same pastries that I've tried previously, which they do. At Ginza Mitsukoshi, I tried again and failed to get the basic cream puff from F. Cassel (sold out), and instead got a couple Mini Pain aux Raisins from Dalloyau. Even perhaps a little not fresh at the end of the day, they were excellent.

Toshi Yoroizuka: Riche Fromage

Got a new cake from Toshi Yoroizuka, the winner of the last cake-off. I didn't waste much time getting back there because they are only at Isetan until tomorrow. Only a small selection for visitors, but I choose Riche Fromage, which is a rare and baked cheesecake with a top layer of lemon flavored whipped cream as the best prospect, not because I'm fixated on cheesecake now. It was definitely good, and I was ready to give it the benefit of the doubt and call it excellent, but later I had a nagging feeling that excellent was too much, so for the first time I'm going to designate something as semi-excellent from a single evaluation, so I'm averaging my two minds on the evaluation rather than two evaluations.

For exercise, I did the neighborhood course including Wakaba, southeast from Yotsuya 3-choume Station by bicycling, skipping the steps, of course. There are some pretty steep slopes, so it was a little scary on a bicycle in light rain going down, but no slipping (the worst parts are textured, with handrails for pedestrians). Going up was good exercise. They finally finished the construction around the park at the south end, so I'll need to update that map. I might also want to make stairless versions for bicycling. When I get back to running, I might want to start off by not running up hills, which was just what my running program was suggesting for someone who was having trouble enjoying the little time he had for running (and, of course, they also gave him advace on running form and exercises to improve weak points). I imagine I'm going to take it even slower and more carefully that previous times when I get back to running again, paying attention to new things. like what kind of footing I use, heel versus ball of the foot. The former is bad generally, but the latter can mess up your achiles, which is what I did but too much without enough training.

Bigarreaux: Tarte Ordinaire

For today, Sunday (yeah, finally catching up), I chose pastry over cake (so later in the week I'll get cake instead of a pastry). First I verified that Fraoula only only has their prevoius four pastries, which was true. Then I went on to P. Bigarreaux, where I noticed that they did not have their almond croissant (it was fairly early, so I assume that it was not sold out), which was disappointing for the future. Today, I wanted something new. I had to consider my definition of pastry carefully, but I decided that the Tarte Ordinaire qualified (probably the only thing, though there was a flan tart or something that I might allow). This is a basic almond tart with a good deal of rum, not really soaked in it but at least moist with it. It was definitely good, but ordinary, as promised. The rain was little enough that eating outside was fine, though it rained all day and tomorrow will be worse, especially in the morning, as the taiphoon kills up rain clouds.

Of my top shops for pastries (ones with more great ones than sub-excellent ones), only Dalloyau has anything new for me, though I need to check in with P. Shima. I'll probably do that Wednesday on the way to Ginza, where I'll try again to get a cream puff from F. Cassel.

Cake-off: Toshi Yoroizuka's Annya over Frédéric Cassel's Konatsu Cheesecake

Saturday's cake-off was between two first-round losers, both seasonal cakes. Konatsu Cheesecake (though actually I got the Étoile version, which is decorated for Tanabata, I'm guessing, which is an upcoming festival. They've fooled before by this name change a minor decorating of a cake, so I looked closely at the card when I saw that the cheesecake can changed and so that it was the same. Plus, they know me, so they made sure that I knew it was the same cake. I'm explaining out of order, since first I walked to Isetan and Toshi Yoroizuka's Annya. I probably would have been more time efficient to cycle to Kyoubashi Toshi Yoroizuka and then go down to Ginza Mitsukoshi, but two cakes on a bicycle is even harder than running and I have tomoai points at Isetan, so it's like an 8% discount.

The Annya was as remembered, like a great piece of rhubarb pie, perhaps. The cheesecake was excellent, but I wasn't feeling the greatness, so I might not need to keep this on the great list. If it returns for the third round (probably not, though some other cheesecake will probably appear next year), I'll have to consider carefully.

Pierre Marcolini: Éclair Saison (Passion Fruit)

Went to Ginza Mitsukoshi to finally get the choux cream from Frédéric Cassel, just to get ahead or not get behind on the top shop with available new cakes while I work on catching up excellent shops to 5 cakes each and  digging deeper in the line-ups of shops that might deserve up-grades (which includes one of the previous category that did well, Ryoura). Unfortunately, they were sold out of that item, maybe because of a SMS post of a similar item and it being a Friday night, when one is always lucky to find anything. Of course they had other cakes I hadn't sampled, but nothing I was particularly interested in, so, after verifying that Origines Cacao at Ginza 6 still has none of the great cakes of a few years ago, I went with finally visiting a new shop, Pierre Marcolini, which in Tokyo only has something cake-like at their Ginza mother store (they are a chocolate brand, but mostly use ice cream as bait at their shops/counters). I wanted to visit here because of their visit to Isetan (I waited to long to try to buy an éclair there, and they had switched to less perishable items).

I'm calling this Éclair Saison (Passion Fruit), which is slightly different from Éclair Passion Fruit (shown elsewhere online) in having macaron shells and white chocolate disks; no complaint here. Actually the filling base is white chocolate too, which makes sense for a chocolate shop. Interestingly, they rang this up with a 6 yen discount to round it down to the nearest 10s/50s/250s. This was definitely excellent. Maybe I should always choose fruit flavors when it comes to éclair (I choose it over pineapple and coconut, which was the only other flavor left that time of night, whereas they've been completely sold out the other time I went, to verify their location), though I suspect the choice of white chocolate over some sort of custard cream as the base filling is important.

Bien-être: Framboisier

For last Thursday, I cycled to Bien-être as a shop that should probably be promoted (from quite excellent to superb). In the past, I got overly focused on raising the cake count for such shops, but since mostly they fail as I get deeper into the line-up and cakes I initually ignored, now I'm trying to be more gradual about it (which also mean there are a lot of shops that need such attention).

I've gotten used to seemingly sudden changes in the line-up at Bien-être, but actually most of the cakes were familiar, include one that I haven't seen since last October when I declaired it great and then it was gone the next week before I got a chance to put it in a cake-off. This give me multiple conflicting priorities for the next cake-off, but I'll stick with two seasonal cakes, one temperarily at Isetan and get back to this one for the following cake-off.


For Thursday, though, I got the Framboisier, which was somewhat surprised not have gotten to before. The café space was full again, so it was for take-out. This is a fairly standard cake and I've been unimpressed previously, but this had the right levels of moisture

and sweetness, which are also very temperature dependent, so it's not clear that other shops are to blame. Anyway, while not a simple cake if you consider all the layers but somehow it feels simple, so I might get tired of it, but this is a great cake of a type that isn't heavily represented in my great list, so I'm hopeful that it will have staying power (and I don't feel in a hurry to put it in a cake-off, since it's been around for as far back as I can remember, as short a time as that is).

L'Éclair de Génie: Chocolat Grand Cru, Caramel Salé, and Vanille Pecan

Wanted cake for two on Wednesday, so I went to Shinjuku Takashimaya. On the way, though, I stopped by Toshi Yoroizuka visiting Isetan and saw that Annya (tart-based rhubarb and red fruit cake) was back, which was useful information for the next cake-off (second round, loser's).

For Takashimaya, I didn't check which shops were available at the cafeteria-style patisserie counter, so I wasn't surprised when the ones that I wanted were not there (just need to remember not to go on Wednesday again). I selected instead L'Éclair de Génie from among by backups, and got the Chocolat Grand Cru, Caramel Salé, and Vanille Pecan. These were all good, so I wasn't disappointed, but not exciting, so I probably won't be back again.

Paris S'éveille: Croissant Orange

Last Tuesday, I went looking for a pastry at Paris S'éveille, but I checked my cake spreadsheet rather than this blog, so I didn't know that I had gotten a Croissant Orange before. I was going there not just for another pastry but for another item from Paris S'éveille, who I intend to replace Pierre Hermé with as one of the two quite superb shops and also won the previous cake-off but they have no new cakes now. Fortunately, I've decided this time that the Croissant Orange is great and that new ratings now that I'm taking pastries more seriously override old rating (previously I had written that it was excellent). The amount of orange paste inside is actually fairly small but gives the correct balance, with the powdered sugar outside, so it's more like an orange version of a pain au chocolat than a croissant d'almonde, which often have so much almond paste that the croissant has a completely different shape, though there are different ways to almondize a croissant.

Grégory Collet: Avant-Garde, Mimosa d'Été, and Roi de Maron

Another day in Kobe last Sunday and had cake for two at Grégory Collet, which has moved north and exchanged being a café for being a modest salon de thé. We'll miss the lunch menu, but at least there are a lot of interesting restaurants around there (which we wished we had taken advantage of rather than trying to eat at the hotel at Shin Kobe Stn.). 











Along with tea and coffee, we got three cakes: Roi de Maron, Avant-Garde, and Mimosa d'Été. It's been almost a week, so details have been lost in time, but t
he first is pretty much a basic mont-blanc, but not in a bad way: excellent.

The mimosa was a verrine, so not my thing. It was still good, and definitely orangy.









The last was sort of a surprise, as I didn't look at the specs closely. Outside is vanilla but inside is dark chocolate (Guadaja; 70% cacao) cream, as well as some biscuit, crunch, and nuts, I think. Definitely  excellent.

Only based on three cakes from ehre and the others that I've posted on, right now this seems like my top shop in Kobe. There are a couple other places I want to hit, but otherwise my priority is to get back here and also try again with L'Avenue, which previously had been excellent.

Chocolat Republic: Kobe Raw Chocolate Mont-Blanc and Cassis Mont-Blanc

I'm a week behind and still learning about the new computer. Also, I couldn't find any notes on Kobe cakes except online, so I worked with Excel to set up a spreadsheeet for them, which too some time. I also added two cake sources to my Kobe cake map and corrected one location.

In the evening of last Friday, I got cake for two from Sogo Kobe from the Chocolat Republic counter, which is a local brand (with a few of their own shops, but Sogo was more convenient). Besides chocolate, mont-blanc seemed to be their thing, so I got the Kobe Raw Chocolat Mont-Blanc and the Cassis Mont-Blanc. These were both good, though of the soft cake variety, whereas I like more variation in texture. Still, the shop I know looks more like it belongs on Disney history street, or something, so I've avoided them, suspecting they'd be pretty low level, so I was actually relieved that these were fine, and appreciated.

Cake-off: Paris S'éveille's Monsieur Arnaud over Viron's Gateau au Chocolat

Had a small window to squeeze in a cake-off last Saturday. Fortunately, the plan was a second-round cake-off for two first-round winners, Gateau au Chocolate from Viron, which has a shop that opens at 9 am in Shibuya, and Monsieur Arnaud from Paris S'éveille, which opens at 10 am and is also southwest though I navigated poorly again and arrived close to 10:15. 

Both cakes managed the long trip back reasonably well. Comparing them, it quickly became clear that Monsieur Arnaud had all kinds of good things going on, biscuit, crunch, chocolate, cream, a little fruit, whereas the Viron had just simple straight chocolate, so the winner was quickly decided in Monsieur Arnaud's favor and the tasting was more a matter of determining how much I like Viron's. In the end, I'm will to recognize it was at least excellent, which is enough for it to maintain it's Great status, but it's going to have to do better next year to stay on the great cake list. 

Dalloyau: Chausson aux Pommes

Last Friday, wanted to get a pastry from Dalloyau, which is my top pastry shop, at least based on my limited data. I started by going to Ginza Mitsukoshi, but they were sold out, so I swung down to the Meguro Stn. Dalloyau and picked up the Chausson aux Pommes. This was all cycling, of course. Probably no running through June. It was late, though, so everything was already bagged, which means soft. Really, I want my pastries crispy, but I'm not sure how crisp it can be with apple filling anyway. It was good, but not really beyond that. There's a reason (besides cost) why I usually start simpler.