Various non-cake

Saturday, I made my first real attack on the (as currently constituted) Daita--Daizawa--Hatagaya--Kamiyamachou--Kitazawa--Komaba--Motoyoyogichou--Nishihara--Oohara--Ooyamachou--Shouto--Tomigaya--Uehara loop. This is 30+ km. I had hoped that I would be able to run about 3 hours, but with the walking for taking photos of the majority of landmarks that I hadn't already visited, I was on my feet for more than 4 hours after under 2.5 hours of running. Also, I did a bad job of planning provisions, so I was out of physical energy, as well as low on phone battery and losing the light. My course had me running to the point by the Honmachi 1 intersection and I ended around Ikenoue Station, which I used to return, as my feet were sore (but in a normal way that I recovered from by the next day).

Croissant (Asterisque)

Had a few snacks and saw some interesting things. Near the beginning, in the part that I had already checked and photographed, I got a croissant from Asterisque, which was busy, like other similar places in Uehara, so it took a while. As appropriate for a quite good cake shop, they had an excellent croissant, which was suitably flaky on the outside and sufficiently baked on the inside: best of the recent ones I've had.

Auro Chocolate Japan

I need to adjust my course around there, but by chance I went by a building with a new chocolate store. I've yet to sample local beans-to-bar shops for chocolate, since that's not my focus, but I wanted to add it to my map, so I went in. It's deep in the back of the second floor, where no one else was going, so while the coffee and donut shop around the corner had a long line, this place was empty. I felt sorry for them, but not enough to buy chocolate, which I wasn't ready to eat (I hadn't eaten the croissant yet) and didn't want to run with. Their name is Auro Chocolate Japan, so I'll give them this shout out. I was certainly attracted to some items and regretted not buying later, when all I was visiting was park after park.

Of course, some parks are more distinctive than others. 

Egg Tart (Toyonchinotomago)

My next food was at an egg store, which was not on my map, so I added it. They also had some (packed) cake, but I bought an egg tart. I should not have been surprised about how eggy it was. Still, it was good. I think the crust was fairly solid, versus a flaky crust. This was from Toyonchinotamago (Toyonchi's Eggs). 

Soon afterward, I encountered a complex that had a bakery cafe (Tolo) and Shiro-Hige's Cream Puff Factory, which makes Totoro-shaped cream puffs. It's in a dark little relatively wooded nook where, if you're not looking for it, it would be hard to find, but the fans come. 

It was not long (or maybe it was, as there were a lot of photo-stops in between) before I was very hungry again, so I got a donut at a shop that also I think was not on the original map, Captain's Donuts. These are extremely lightly fried, so pretty moist, though not raw. Not very modern. I think this was just called Donut. Doesn't really need much else, though I should check when I next go by.

The most interesting place I saw was The Setagaya Catholic Church. Note what I expected to find near Shimo-Kitazawa Station, which is packed with old shops and young people. This is a theatre area, so lots of artists, I suppose.

I was still really hungry at this point, having only had breakfast about 8 hours before. So I visited the local cake shop on the way to the station. I thought about getting actual cake, but wasn't very confident about them, so I went with their Croissant. This small croissant turned out to be the soft, hotel-type breakfast croissant, which is okay with jelly or something, but doesn't belong elsewhere. Still, it was okay for what it was. The shop was P. Pierre, its typical of little traditional neighborhood cake shops. I'll consider the croissant a suitable sample and not feel very compelled to try their cake.