Cake-off: Au Bon Vieux Temps's Marjolaine over Paris S'éveille's Giverny,

Just for the record, I went out Saturday night, before the rain got bad, for 40 minutes of running on the local neighborhood course. That was enough to revisit my southwest Shinjuku loop and the northern part of Sendagaya, so I can focus on central Sendagaya when I go out again. I think I'm going to try to revisit just at least the already mapped neighborhood course inside the Yamanote Line before I revisit though further out or work on new routes further out, though I've some new spots inside Yamanote Line that I overlooked previously or were cut off due to construction before that I'd like to do sooner rather than later.  It's going to take awhile, though, since I'm usually more interesting in running for cake.

Sunday morning, I ran to Todoroki in Setagawa to visit Au Bon Vieux Temps and get their Marjolaine for a cake-off. The run was 89 minutes, though I didn't use the most efficient route. That was about the limit for how far I felt ready to run this weekend, especially since then I had a two-station walk back to Paris S'éveille in Jiyuugaoka to get Giverny and then take the train back home. I've built up enough distance now to get to most shops that I want to reach for weekdays, so I should start doing some interval work to build up my strength so I can go at least a little faster.

As a cake-off, the Marjolaine was much stronger than I remembered and the caramelized to the point of almost a burnt taste really made it hard to appreciate the Ginvery. Perhaps I should have switched from comparing bites to clearing my palate more and figuring out what was great about the Ginvery, because its taste combination wasn't really working for me this time. I think any fruity cake would have trouble against the Marjolaine, so I should probably be careful with both cakes next time. As it is, I have to give the Marjolaine the win and mark the Ginvery as potentially not great. This was a second round of first-round winners, so the Ginvery isn't going to get booted from the great list for one poor performance. In a sense, this is revenge by Au Bon Vieux Temps for Ginvery's first-round win over its Chocolate Framboise. However, if the third round comes around next year, PS already has three double winners and two more possibles to ABVT's only one, so no reason to feel sorry for them. Now I need to use a weekend/holiday to visit ABVT again and try a new cake.