Blondir, Bourgeonner

Monday, I worked late, so I did some neighborhood course confirmation near Tokyo Midtown and stopped for a croissant from Sadaharu Aoki, since they don't have any fresh cake that I haven't had. It was excellent. It says that it was imported from France, but I expect in the form of butter and flour, not already baked, though they could import frozen dough. I completed confirming the Minami-Aoyama east loop and the Roppongi 7 west loop and did the Roppongi 7 east clockwise (all in the National Art Center clump of three loops).

Tuesday, I ran down to the Sadaharu Aoki at Shibuya Hikarie ShinQs and got their exclusive Tokyo-yaki Macaron Chocolat, which is a traditional Japanese cake made from batter and a mold with a macaron inside instead of bean paste. Also, the cake part was mochi-like (chewy) and green tea flavor. I microwaved it for 20 seconds as recommended, and it pretty much recreated the traditional texture despite having a macaron for filling. I'll never do that again. I'll call it good because it was as designed, but if I try another flavor, I'll have it cold, though I don't expect it would be better. Hopefully I'll find better things elsewhere. For the running, I did a one-way neighborhood course run to formally add the newly designed Shibuya east loop and well as confirm my knowledge of it, which completes the Shibuya Station Southeast clump of two loops.

Wednesday, I got cake at Isetan from Blondir, as a third cake from a seemingly quite good shop. This is supposedly pistachio ganache with strawberry soaked in red wine, but then there is Kirsch in there somewhere, maybe in the raisins on top, as they were definitely soaked in something. The feeling was more like a rum raisin cake, but then pistachio is the fruity nut. It was interesting and I approval of the design. Definitely wouldn't mind having it again, so excellent: Blondir will make the cut. Now on to the "C" quite good shops. Running was to Ginza, touring from Mitsukoshi and then (walking underground) to Viron and to 14 Juillet, none of which had anything unexpected.