Cake-off: Cacao Store (Théobroma)'s San Juaquin Dos over Viron's Bonaparte

After more than two years, visiting Viron looking for previous great cakes finally paid off Friday, when I say that Bonaparte was brought back. I rate this as great but never did a cake-off, so that became the new priority. Prior to that, there was actually running, in the form of a one-way neighborhood run that got as far as revisiting both the Minami-Aoyama--Nishi-Azubu loop (which goes past Esola the Lab, where I got black cheesecake recently) and the connected Nishi-Azuba Northwest loop, which goes by the temple Choukoku-ji, as the main landmark, and is a neighborhood in which I've seen people out waking their (full-sized) pig on a leash a couple times. Note counting stops for stretches, it took about 68 minutes, after which I walked home. No cake or pastry, as I was banking them for the weekend.

Saturday, I did a cake-off, cycling, again resting my feet where I could. I stopped to take a few photos of, for example the entrance (since there seemed to be a guard and it's very private looking) to Central Tokyo Church of Perfect Liberty, which is a Japanese "new religious movement", started by a Zen Buddhist priest.

Viron opens early, so I went there first, choosing the Shibuya location because it aligned with my initial photography goals, and got Bonaparte, which is a chocolate cake flavored with prune. I took it home, did some other shopping, and then went out to Bien-être, where I found that they had canceled business, presumably because they were not finished with their renovations. My back up was Cacao Store, very close, where I got San Juaquin Dos (actually by Théobroma, like all their cakes), which is straight chocolate cake, pretty much, and their star attraction, seems like.

Both of these cakes involve, well, more cake than my usual choices: no caramel, mousse, cream, crunch, or nuts. My first reaction was, is just cake really great? But they convinced me of their merits over time. Initially, Viron had the edge, with its extra interesting flavor, but the Cacao Store chocolate cake, with its thick layers of ganache, won me over by the end. Next time a trip to Bien-être for a new cake fails, I know where to go.

In the afternoon, I went out again by bicycle for additional exercise and photos, covering the rest of a hatagaya--Honmachi loop for a neighborhood course (and finding a few flaws that needed fixing), as well as the rest of the north side of the Hatagaya--Motoyoyogichou--Nishihara--Tomigaya--Uehara loop, though one shrine was closed, so I would like to go back.

Lots of seasonal cakes appeared in September in the top shops, but I'm not going to sweat it, and just take them in order (of my original evaluations), so I hope that JPH's chocolate tart sticks around for October, so I can get it for a second-round cake-off.