L'Abricotier: Chataigne

Sunday, I put off doing the giant new loop as a one-way neighborhood course run (~45 km) or going to Maison Douce (~35 km) and instead went to P. L'Abricotier, but by a very long route, going by dozens of sites to add to my neighborhood course map, which is getting pretty out of control. I don't actually have much of the actual course plotted out where I was adding and I was still finding (or not finding) sites to include as I went.

At the shop, I ate in and was not alone, though just one couple, so I took the far table (there are only three tiny tables). I got the Chataigne and probably shouldn't have. The card warned me that it had bitter caramel, which turned out to mean the caramel of Japanese purin (pudding), which I hate (the caramel, that is). But then, it's not as bad as coffee, and I can accept a certain amount of that in cake sometimes. In this case, the base cake was mascarpone cheese flavored (in the inside) with the caramel, and chestnut supposedly for contrast, though it would take a lot more chestnut to balance the caramel for me. So I did not like this cake, but on the other hand, it was well constructed, as advertised, and the flavor of caramel seemed normal for its type. I'm putting it down as good and will try to avoid bitter caramel. However, good is not enough to save the shop from slipping from quite excellent to just excellent, which it was already doing, so I went ahead and finally made that change, swapping it with Clair de Lune, though I'm worried that it might not be able to keep the position.

That phase of running took about 3 hours, so I decided to save my strength and come back from train, after taking a few more pictures and running the extra kilometer or so to the more convenient train line (in terms of frequency of direct trains), and get lunch.

Possible cake source 

After a few hours break, I went out again the in evening and ran 1+ hours around Harajuku. It was a surprisingly comfortable run. I did an easy counterclockwise run around the Jinguumae east loop on the way and managed to get the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama loop clockwise correct without having to look it up. Also did some recon along Omotesandou and found another café worth adding, so I'm still fiddling with the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama--Shibuya loop. Also, although the current café in Gyre doesn't rate inclusion by itself, they are scheduled to get a bean-to-bar chocolate shop next month in time for Valentines Day, which is a better step toward the loss of the cake and bread shops that used to be in the basement.