Cake-off: Sadaharu Aoki's Noisettine Chocolat over Jean-Paul Hévin's Mille-feuille Chocolat

Today a typhoon is passing over the main island of Japan (it's noisy now here), so maybe that was why the streets were extremely empty Sunday morning. I think they must of close Sophia University and the church in front of it, because without even trying I made the next light after passing through the Yotsu-Mitsuke intersection, which never happens, because there's usually about a hundred people in the way any time I'm running that way.

My running goal was to get to Ginza Mitsukoshi for the Mille-feuille Chocolat at Jean-Paul Hévin, maybe on the last possible day, after discovering it secretly (as far as not finding anything notice on their website) over there. I wanted to do a first-round cake-off, so I choose the nearest shop to match it (there is a typhoon coming, so I wanted to get home before the rain started up again) and got the recently enjoyed Noisettine Chocolat from Sadaharu Aoki in Marunouchi (I was early and quick enough at Ginza Mitsukoshi, that I actually had to wait several minutes for Sadaharu Aoki to open.

These are two heavy cakes, so I went out for a couple hours running and walking (in about equal measure) to places that I didn't have photos for on the neighborhood course map. Took about a dozen, found that a couple places showing up on Google Maps weren't permanent places, like a Dars (chocolate brand) shop in Omotesando Hills. Led to lots of revisions of courses, including creating a couple new little loops for access to some new shops.

Both the Mille-feuille Chocolat and Noisettine Chocolat remained definitely great. It was hard to choose between them, since they are both unique and amazing, but I really like noisettine and chocolate, so Sadaharu Aoki gets the win. The Mille-feuille Chocolat remains my top priority for a second-round cake-off, if it shows up at another shop. I'm going to be patrolling regularly.

A two cake-off weekend, so only two cakes for the week (probably both from Isetan, if they still have last month's Isetan exclusive for Sadaharu Aoki; otherwise, Marunouchi has two exclusives through next month, and maybe Tokyo Midtown still has the matcha cream puff). That's okay. I'll take a rest one day and get something besides fresh cake from a couple local shops two days.