Bien-être: Kyohou Grape Shortcake

On Monday, I reserved cake at Bien-être for Wednesday, so it was good luck, I suppose, that Tuesday was the day with violent rain over Tokyo in the evening. Today, I was a little surprised when they called me to ask whether I was coming to get the cake when it was before the earliest time that I had given them and I paid ahead, but someone else probably wanted it. I told them that I was on my way, since I was more than halfway done with the run there (I was actually just passing Harajuku Station). They were sold-out of that cake and other one which I would have wanted (seasonal tart), so it was good that I reserved it. There was a table open between parfait eaters, so even though I told them take-out and they had already boxed it, they offered to let me eat in, so I did.

The cake was their seasonal shortcake, which now is Kyohou (巨峰の) Grape Shortcake, which I've heard other cake shops as offering now, too. Not sure how long the season lasts. I've had grape mille-feuille from there in the past, so it was probably the same kind of grape, though I wasn't paying attention to that at the time. Bien-être has surprised me in the past, but this was a standard Japanese shortcake, which means lots of whipped cream, some fruit, and sponge cake to hold it together. All of these are good and go fine together, but this kind of cake is too much plain whipped cream for me to get excited about, though a change is often nice. Definitely good cake, as expected.

This leaves Bien-être, Paris S'éveille, and Sadaharu Aoki overlapped for third place. Since I've had the fewest cakes from Bien-être, they remain the priority, but any of them could end up on top, though none of them have many cakes that I haven't had, so it's not so important as far as prioritizing for new cakes.