Afterhours: Gateau Chocolat

Took the afternoon off yesterday, coincidentally one of the few days without rain, with the main plan being to do a one-way neighborhood course run taking in all of the Hatagaya--Hatsudai--Honmachi--Tomigaya--Yoyogi loop, which merges an old loop with what was going to be the Hatagaya-Honmachi loop. Haven't measured how far it is to the nearest point, but it took just under 50 min, which I was happy with. The target loop is 11.1 km long and includes 4 pedestrian bridge crossings and another bridge-equivalent set of stairs between the New National Theatre Tokyo and Tokyo Opera City, which maybe they don't want people running through (just the down half were in the arcade, so I limited myself there, at least while the guard was around). I could avoid the latter stairs if I took the long way around on the main streets. The loop took about 80 min. There was lots of pausing to check the map and some walking around crowded areas, so I could probably do it faster and felt like I should practice it some more, but when I played back the run in my mind, I could remember the total shape, just there are just a couple places were I don't yet recognize because there isn't an obvious landmark and its more than three streets from the previous landmark. I found one problem with the map (I pedestrian signal blocks the main path), but it gives me an excuse to take out separate loop (I can just turn there and pick up the loop as part of the main loop). Found one cake shop, though it's just homemade style tarts, so not a high priority, and a Christian ministry headquarters, which I've added to the map, along with a sandwich place (Sun&Witch) on the way that sells bread, now that I'm adding general take-out baked goods places, not just places with cake or pastries. I'm still walking on updating the rest of loop, just to make sure all the included landmarks are together, in order, and labeled.

There was also cake, not surprisingly. One of the harder to visit cake shops on a neighborhood course (specifically, the above-mentioned long loop) is Afterhours, which was closed a long time in summer, closes at 6 pm in general, and isn't open Sundays. They are tiny and have just a few simple cakes and a small table and a counter (both occupied this time) that require a drink order, so I got cake and ran it to the next park on the loop. Choices were a tart, a shortcake, a baked cheesecake, and a traditional (French) chocolate cake, Gateau Chocolat, so I went with the latter, which they just put in a paper bag like a loaf of bread, which is all it needed, since you might find this at a bakery. It was good but didn't really surpass its simplicity, so no special reason to go back there other than that I'm going past and want some cake (though, if they were closed, I was going to go to Cacao Store, which is less than 100 m away running (probably 50 m as the crow flies) and I owe a cake from a cake-off win.