Cake-off: L'Abricotier's Sicilien Figue over Libertable's Charm

Continuing the trend, I did my traveling with 10 intervals of 4-min running, starting from about 10 am. First I went to L'Abricotier to get their Sicilien Figue (Cicilien Figue? For some reason my spelling notes from the shop are especially irregular). The rain was light to none, so I could pick up a couple pictures of not very interesting parks for my map and verify that what Google thought was a cake shop was an empty lot. The construction plan posted showed mixed commercial and housing on the shopping street, so it's possible Google is ahead of itself. I came back by train, but making connections from shop to station and station to home, I still used up all 10 running intervals, so after a half-lunch, I went out again walking to Libertable and back. Since I'm reviewing my neighborhood running course through the Harajuku area, I went to the counter in Shibuya Hikarie ShinQs, which was still well stocked at 1:30 pm. Along the way, I verified the nonexistence of a shop but added a couple cafés that marginally expand the proposed new loop for southern Cat Street. On the way back, I popped into one of the chain coffee shops I was considering adding and decided not: the baked goods were plastic wrapped.

This week's cake-off cakes were both zero for two going into the third round and were marked as questionable for staying on the greats list. Against each other though, I'm happy to keep them both on it. Charm is a very creamy and sweet mont-blanc, but I'm choosing the fruity flavor of the Sicilien Figue. Looks like I'm back to owing L'Abricotier a cake. Well, I've never had their cream puff, so I'm sure I'll be able to find something new, but it's going to take a couple weeks, as I'm busy next weekend. Also probably no cake-off, but maybe a visit to new fancy tea salon.

Went out about noon, which is about right to visit L'Atelier Motozo, since they don't open until 1 pm (staffing problems). On the way, I checked out some potential sites on the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama--Shibuya loop. The neighborhood is a maze and the current loop violates my general rules in a couple place, so in adding a Starbucks, I noticed some other cafés that seemed to require that I split up this loop and made three tentative new loops, one for east of Omotesandou Station, one for the southern part of Cat Road, and one circling the UN university. At least one current shop had disappeared and I found more cafés, so the loops still aren't stable. Also, I'm considering adding a couple more chain coffee shops, though I also ruled one out (it was more like a restaurant than a café).

I also worked on reviewing some current very minor loops and did them clockwise: the Shibuya east loop, Dougenzaka loop, and Sakuragaoka-chou loop. Then I finally made I way down to L'Atelier Motozo a little before 2 pm. Eating in requires ordering a drink, so I got take-out. It took longer to get home than I liked, maybe 10 minutes over the hour I told them, so I'm not sure whether the center of the cake would have been more solid if I had been faster, though I did give it about an hour in the refrigerator. This shop does Italian deserts, so not my usual style. I went with Fiore Fata, which they mark as "original", versus the mostly traditional deserts, at least in name. This is  blancmange, cherry sauce, cranberry syrup, inside of pistachio mousse, which is wrapped in an herb spongy cake. Can't say that I need more blancmange in my cakes, but this was fine as filler and the cherry and cranberry harmonized well so the fruit taste was better than I would usually expect from either separately and that fruit went well with the pistachio. That much was good, but wrapping it in the herb cake sent this into excellent territory. So this shop too will remain the the quite fine shop list. Not sure that I'm going to be able to slim this list down to the desired 32 shops. Not even sure I can get it down to few enough shops that I could cut the bottom of the list below and get two ranks of shops totally around 96 cakes. Well, there's always the next big cut when I go for having sampled 4 cakes from each in this one and 2 from the one below. That shouldn't take more than a few more years.

Completely forgot to talk about the running. It was misty rain almost the whole way, which looks like the best I can expect for the next week. Total, I was out about three hours, though there were obviously some stopped for popping in shops and taking a few photos. It had been three days since my last run, so this time I included 9 intervals of 4 minutes of running, so I'm still taking it easy but starting to build up. I'm running long enough that I could do a local training run without walking and cover some regular loops.

Ryoura, Baron

Took the afternoon off, but a typhoon was coming, so I limited how much I was out. I had more errands to do at 4 pm, but there was some rain in the air and it has been somewhat windy all day, so decided I didn't want a long ride and gave up on more important matters after returning with cake. If the typhoon doesn't blow through quick, tomorrow's commute is going to be uncomfortable.

I went to Ryoura between lunches to finally catch up on visiting shops with cake-off wins. I spent a long time choosing, making sure to get something new. I got the Baron, which I must have considered before and regretted passing up, but there are definitely no tags for it, so it must be new. This is dried fruit in meringue, so the former made me think of Christmas fruitcake, but I prefer meringue to most demi-sec cake. Definitely good.

Speaking of cake-offs,  Bigarreaux is back to not making Le Plaisir, so it looks like I'll be back to L'Abricotier this weekend for Cicilien Figue as the competitor in the third-round losers bracket.

Très Calme, Cremeux Lime

Today's plan was to go to Très Calme for a new cake, since their cake won the last cake-off (both their great cakes have had third-round cake-offs now). I was not expecting to have enough time to walk and I was feeling that maybe my feet needed rest from the recent return to some running, so I went by bicycle. I decided to get Cremeux Lime, which is a lime cheesecake. Then, I was afraid it was going to be too mild, since I was thinking the description was mascarpone cheese, but now I'm not so sure what it said. Anyway, it wasn't any milder than a typical cream cheesecake and the lime and cheese worked well enough together that I can definitely say that it was excellent cake, so this shop keeps meeting my expectations as an an exceptional cake shop even with the tenth cake from there.

Origines Cacao, Saint Honoré Pistache Framboise

Finally got over to Ginza 6 to visit Origines Cacao and get a new cake from them. This falls under new cakes from superb shops, because right now Origines Cacao is a candidate, but based on less than half the cakes I've sampled from the current list, so it's going to be a long process to make the leap.

To day and walked and ran (in 4 min intervals, 6 total of the running) and got the Saint Honoré Pistache Framboise, since I like saint-honoré in general and the other one I had from them was excellent. Even with 24 minutes of running, it's a long round trip, taking 1 h 45 min, so maybe tomorrow I'll go to a shop by bicycle, even though that's also my plan for Thursday.

I'll also rate this as excellent. The pistachio and raspberry harmonized well and the choux pastry provided texture to contrast the cream. Definitely much better than the last saint-honoré  I had from a different shop.

Éclat des Jours, Macaron Anana

I was thinking that I owed Éclat des Jours for a cake-off win, but apparently not, just I was putting them off because they're at the bottom of the quite exceptional shop list. No matter: under the new system, they were above all the shops in the exceptional shop list. To get a better selection of a new cake, I wanted to go on a weekend, and I did get something new, the Macaron Anana. It's as named, although the macaron is airy, which may be a thing in Tokyo shops now, and pineapple is different, though tropical fruit appear in cakes in the summer. It was good, but the design and flavors didn't stand out as something I wanted again.

This was about a 11 km one-way, bring the cake back by train. I did feel a need to test a new limit of walking again today, though I did incrementally increase the running bit to four 4-min intervals, plus around a few intersections. So far so good. Next walk and run will probably be Tuesday. I have to decide whether to finally visit Origines Chocolat for new cake or see whether Michalak at Omotesando still has the clam-shell type "cake" that disappeared from Isetan recently (the pistachio tart and milk chocolate tart have also disappeared, replaced by two more jar sweets, which I'm not willing to accept as comparable to cake, though I don't mind, since I've had the tarts and I agree that they were the least interesting of the cakes). Also today, I noticed a new bakery within the scope of the neighborhood running course out in Kojimachi, though I'm going to need to add another single-block loop to include it. It's pretty far out in the periphery, so I'll put off adding the loop until I get around to reviewing the adjacent loop.

Cake-off: Très Calme's Mont-Blanc over Bubó Barcelona's Bubó Xoco Deluxe

This weekend's cake-off was a third-round match between two one-and-one cakes. First, I walked, along with two 4-min intervals of running, to Très Calme and got their signature cake, their Mont-Blanc. This has a cassis center and features coffee meringue on the outside, which balance out. This is the only cake with coffee in the my greats list, I think. I took the train back, since it's 7 or 8 kilometers and I had a second cake to get. The opposite was my favorite cake from Bubó Barcelona, their Bubó Xoco Deluxe. This time I let him give me their bag because it was raining and they have an unusually shaped box and a bag decided to fit it, so it was pretty stable. I ran another 4 min on the round trip, which was also 7 or 8 kilometers total, so it was a test of both my walking capability and renewed running.

I enjoyed both cakes, but the Bubó Xoco Deluxe was unable to stand out against the strong favor of the Mont-Blanc and in fact, though excellent, I've decided that I don't need it in the greats, which include a lot of chocolate cakes. The Mont-Blanc remains distinctive. I have a little trouble with the aftertaste, though that might have also been the leeks in my lunch. So I need to get back to Très Calme, though I have a number of shops in the exceptional cake shop list that I need to catch up on, except the top ones in the quite fine shops list keep poking their heads up asking for more attention. Next, though, I want I work on the quite exceptional shops.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Estate

After visiting a top 3 shop (quite superb) Tuesday, and a top 15 shop (quite exceptional) on Wednesday, I went for a shop in the quite fine group that I want to slim down to being part of the top 63 shops. This time it was the Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, which is the pastry shop attached to the Tokyo Grand Hyatt Hotel in Roppongi Hills. It's been more than two years since I was last there. On the way, I ran the 550 m bordering the Akasaka Palace grounds and walked the rest, but was a start at running again.

As cake, I got Estate, I think. My main concern was not to get the same cake as previously more than worrying about the details, so I didn't finish reading the card before ordering. From the card and the taste, this definitely has peach and liquor. It also obviously has a lot of white chocolate. I'm not sure about the cake layers, as there was a brown layer and a green layer. I ate with green tea and either the green in the cake was green tea or it was pistachio that harmonized with the fruit. In any case, it was very nice and different from other cakes I've enjoyed, so I'm going to say that it was great. I don't have any candidates to quickly get it in a cake-off and it seems seasonal, so the immediate consequence it to put it at the top of the quite fine category, making a candidate for promotion. I'll try to get back there in the next couple weeks.

L'Abricotier, Menthe Fraise

Had some business to take care of, so I took a full day off work, which was more than necessary. Coming back, I took the train all the way to Koenji to visit L'Abricotier  (two other also quite exceptional shops that getting a cake from are a priority are both closed today). I ate in and then walked home by a longer route than necessary that let me take some pictures of some sites from my neighborhood map, although these are all so far out that I may never need them. It was about two hours of walking (whereas I could walk there Sunday in about 80 minutes) and my business included maybe an hour of walking, so I was quite tired but seem okay. Maybe tomorrow I'll slip in some running with the walking and see how that goes. Just a few hundred meters would be enough as a test.

The cake was Menthe Fraise, which is a dome cake. Like another recent mint cake from JPH, they did a good job of balancing this so that the mint is an accent rather than dominating, to the point that I probably wouldn't have known that the accent was mint if they hadn't told me. I wouldn't have thought that mint and strawberry went together, but I think it improved it. It was definitely good cake, so no complaint. Also, now I'm definitely caught up with L'Abricotier, at least for a few weeks, when I'll want to put their Cicilien Figue in a cake-off. That should give me time to get to Ryoura and Éclat des Jours over the next couple weekends. And maybe I'll finally get to Origines Cacao as some place that deserves a chance to see whether it could be promoted.

Sadaharu Aoki: Choux Coco Passion

Not sure of the French, but I got the coconut (whipped) cream and passion fruit custard choux pastry, which I'll call Choux Coco Passion. This was a third try to get it, though it's supposed to be available through late August. For exercise, I fast-walked a neighborhood running course, a semi-new one, in that I decided that I should do the full loop around Akasaka Palace rather than just link up one side to the park on the north end. Today I did it clockwise (which is against the main running traffic). I walked faster than I sometimes run, so I'm feeling pretty ready to run, though I'm going to take it slow when I do.

The cream puff was good. The passion fruit custard is pretty strong, so I didn't particularly notice the whipped cream, though I usually don't like whipped cream on these, so that might reflect that I liked it. Unusually, this is not an ordinary cream puff in that the bottom part doesn't have a bottom, just the custard sets on the paper, although it's thick enough that you can still pick it up and eat it without more more trouble than you would if the bottom were pastry. I'm going to have to check the next variety to see if their cream puffs are always like this. It's fairly heavy too, so a match for your average cake, much less your average cream puff. I'll rate this as excellent.

Cake-off: L'Abricotier's Montelimar over Noix de Beurre's Fraise Chantilly

Walked as far as L'Abricotier's, then to nearest JR Station, then Shinjuku Stn. to Isetan, and then home, which was a lot, and certainly more than other controlled walks, but seemed reasonable, so better than previous walking tests. I was there to get Montelimar for a third-round cake-off of cakes that were one and one. It's opponent was Noix de Beurre's Fraise Chantilly, which is why I went to Isetan. The wait was less than 30 minutes there, which was less than I feared, given the lines from opening time (not sure when or why this started). I questioned last time whether the Fraise Chantilly belong among the greats, but when you want cream and strawberry and a little sponge cake, this is still my favorite, and it is nice sometimes, so I'm keeping it in. However, I like the hazelnut accented by apricot of Montelimar better. Wish it was a little more solid, but then it would be a different cake.

Yoku Moku, Citron Pistache & Mont-blanc

No running Saturday, but about fine hours of shopping afterward, which is more than my feet are up for. Before that, I finally over for some cake from Yoku Moku (via the Blue Brink Lounge) on the Minami-Aoyama 3 & 4 loop of the neighborhood running course.

This is a fairly ubiquitous department store gift cookie brand, so cake is pretty much an extra. After a nice lunch, we tried the Citron Pistache and the Mont-blanc. The Citron Pistache is on the soft side, but still definitely good. The mont-blanc was similar to Michilak's, in that it had a chocolate-coated base. The chestnut past was relatively thick for the amount of whipped cream and a little heavy for me, but still definitely good. While I don't need to go back there, the cake was better than it needed to be, so I respect them.

Rose Bakery: Ricotta Cheesecake

Was trying to get something else, but it wasn't available but I felt busy, so I still wanted to get something at Isetan. That gave me a couple choices of quite fine shops to get a third cake from. I decide to go with Rose Bakery. I had my best previous luck with a cheesecake from, so this time I chose the Ricotta Cheesecake. It was different and good, but not enough that I need to go back. And of course, they aren't trying to be a patisserie, so they aren't really my focus anyway. 

Frédéric Cassel, Framboisier

Heavy rain Monday. Tuesday, I rode out to Frédéric Cassel and got Framboisier in response to a cake-off win. This is lots of pistachio mousse with a nice balance of raspberry and was definitely excellent. The sponge base was a little boring for me though. Maybe because this is similar a strawberry cake they had, I wanted an interesting biscuit as the base, though that would distract one from the raspberry, so not for everyone. I rode it back, stopping for shopping and then went out again for a fast walk, 70 minutes, to do the Central Akasaka clump loops of the neighborhood running course, Akasaka 7 and 8 loops, counterclockwise this time. Felt property tired from exercise despite not running. My feet were mostly fine with it. I might trying walking farther tomorrow.

L'Abricotier, Illanka

Once again, I was back in Nakano-ku to visit L'Abricotier. My excuse, besides that I can only visit on holidays, is that I planned to do a cake-off with their cake next week, so it's a priority not to get behind on them, even though otherwise Ryoura and Éclat des Jours (which doesn't require a holiday, but it's become harder to get something new late in the evening), which are also in the quite exceptional list, probably deserve turns first.

I ate in, as I usually do for new cakes there. I went with a new cake to the shop again, Illanka, but I was not that impressed. It was good, though a little melty, but not any more than advertised, cherry and chocolate mousse. Of course, that combination could have gone very wrong, so I'm not discounting that it was good, but I need something more at this point. Someone more into cherries might be able to better distinguish what's special about this cake, or maybe a more refined appreciation of chocolate.

The bicycling for the cake took a couple hours (I'll say that unconsciously I wanted more exercise, and that's how I got so offtrack on the way there). I ate a half-lunch and went out again walking to see how my feet are doing. I practiced too neighborhood running course loops from memory, the Akasaka 7 and 8 loops, which form their own clump of routes, though total they are only about 2 km, less than the one-way distance to reach them. I was successful (Akasaka 8 is trivial and 7 just has one tricky bit) and no great problem with my feet despite a fast pace and having already done bicycling, though I was pretty tired afterward (not running tired, but still). I might repeat tomorrow night, this time counterclockwise for each, since I plan to get cake from Isetan, though really I should do my indoor workout and maybe some cleaning to free up time later in the week.

Cake-off: Ryoura's Soyeux over Il Pleut sur la Seine's Le Saint Marc

As a third-round cake-off between two one-and-one cakes, I went by bicycle to Ryoura first to get their Soyeux, though I stopped a few places along the way to add pictures for sites on current or planned neighborhood running course. The Soyeux didn't care for the vibration I found later, though mainly some of the base crumbled off. As the second cake, I choose Le Saint Marc from the just returned Il Pleut sur la Seine, though I'll note that they've only returned in a small way. They are down to 4.5 hours a day, 3 days a week, and I think they had all of 4 types of fresh cake, including roll cake.

I went out again after lunch and did the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop sufficiently well counterclockwise by bicycle, so I have a basic grasp of the new course and its sites. I still have three other dead-end connecting loops in that clump of routes to do, though I might visit Akasaka first, and I also need to do the revised Shibuya east loop, which are both small. I might try out my feet walking to one, either before or after going for cake by bicycle.

Returning again, exhausted, I finally did the cake-off. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling the greatness of Le Saint Marc today, though it passed through the first two rounds fine and I can't say that there was anything wrong with how it was made this time, just the chocolate and whipped cream wasn't impressing me and I definitely liked the Soyeux better.

Charmant Gourmand, Moelleux au Chocolat Praliné

I went back to Charmant Gourmand to work on large group of what I've decided to call the quite fine shops, which need to be worked down to 32, and also I need to remove ones faster than I am them, or at least confirm they belong there. 

I had liked the Moelleux au Chocolat Figue last time, so this time I got Moelleux au Chocolat Praliné. As a change, I also microwaved it to make it more soft, as instructed, but that just makes it pudding, which is probably less interesting. Also, I like my praliné more sugary, though that might have gotten lost in the hit chocolate pudding. Still good, but this shop can join the fine shops. 

For exercise, I tried to do the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop counterclockwise (which is at least more with traffic rather than against it). I know all the sites, but I'm not used to the new order yet and don't know where to turn for the new shops, so where I needed to turn for 7clover. That wasn't the only failure, but none big, so it was good to review and I can maybe do it next time. I decided that I should add the Sakuraoka Park, which just looked more like a parking lot and was used for smoking last time I paid attention to it, but does seem to be a proper park, even if not a green one. Also, I should add M.Nature over in Shibuya east loop, despite not being too excited about visiting them again. 

For tomorrow, I don't whether I'l  I  Not sure whether I'll the big loop counterclockwise again or go out to the Marunouchi JPH for their chocolate muffin (since I've had my cakes for the week). 

Pierre Hermé, Macaron Infiniment Chocolat Belize

Out of order, I went to get a cake from Pierre Hermé for their cake-off win a little while back. Now is their macaron festival, or something, so most of the new "cakes" are large macarons. Their standard chocolate cake won the cake-off, so it was appropriate to get their chocolate macaron cake, Macaron Infiniment Chocolat Belize, which doesn't require explanation. On the minus side, it's just a giant macaron really. It needs to be fairly solid to keep it's shape, compared to a regular macaron sandwhich. On the plus side, it's really good chocolate and macaron. I'll call it excellent.

Exercise was muscle training with the usual NHK videos, which leave me pretty out of breath compared to exercising outside, even though it's 20 minutes of video with 8 minutes of (intense) exercise. Except, I can't do Bulgarian squats, at least with my left leg, since the top of my right foot can't support me. Something import in there is broken, for a few years now.

Jean-Paul Hévin, Verrine Chocolat Café

For cake, I went to Jean-Paul Hévin to finally try the Verrine Chocolat Café, which will probably be in for this month from them.

For exercise, I tried to verify clockwise the new Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop (south of Shibuya Station) by bicycle and did well enough (I made mistakes but could immediately correct myself). Next is counterclockwise. On the way back, I say a bicycle and motorcycle collide, but I think they both stayed upright. The motorcycle was turning and the bicycle was trying to go straight. Probably the motorcycle had the right of way, but the bicycle was pretty much doing the normal thing, which is pretty standard for Japanese traffic regulations: safe in theory, except too strict for people to follow, though bicyclists are perhaps the worst offenders in general.

Verrine Chocolat Café was pretty much as good as I could expect. The chocolate mouse was delicious and the coffee part certainly tasted like coffee, much more than the mint did in the mint verrine chocolate. Didn't make me sick, but I'd need to eat a lot more of these (over a period of time) to get used to coffee enough to want it again. I'll call it good.

Les Cacaos, Pistache

Went out by bicycle and confirmed a couple sites I had just added to the revised loop south of Shibuya Station, then went as far out as Oyamadai to check the line-ups of a couple shops, and returned east to get cake from Les Cacaos. It's been a while, and the one great cake I've had there has been absent for several years (probably because Cuban chocolate is not so common). This time I got Pistache, which is pistachio and a high amount of cacao, supposedly. Neither made much of an impression separately or in harmonization. This is a soft (sponge) cake, but may with some sort of fruit with seeds, because there was some of that unpleasant raspberry seed feeling, though I didn't track it down. It didn't taste bad, but especially under the new rating system, I want to say that this was just ok. Les Cacaos hold on its shop group status (which I'm going to change from excellent to exceptional, in revising to avoid overlap between cake ratings and shop ratings) was weak to begin with, but I'll have to see what the competition can manage. Specifically, it and La Vie Douce were identical before this cake, so it wouldn't take much for me to swap these two shops.

Cake-off; L'Abricotier's Montelimar over Sadaharu Aoki's Tarte au Citron

Got the Tarte au Citron from Sadaharu Aoki first, walking to and from Isetan. I noticed that they also had a new coconut cream puff, which I assume will stick around for at a least a couple weeks, so I'll not worry about it next week. Then I went by bicycle and picked up Montelimar from L'Abricotier, came back and had a half-lunch, and then went about again (like Thursday) to try to do the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi...Uguisudani-chou loop. I tried starting at a different part and messed that up, and then after I got on track, I missed the first turn, so clearly I don't know the course yet, which is not so surprising given the many changes. Also, as it happens, pointless to try to know it, since I've had to completely revised it much more dramatically again. One bakery was lost (which simplifies that part), one was found (so I have to turn early, but that's more natural anyway), and I've decided to add a religious headquarters for one of the Shinto-related "new religions" (which meant I had to split off the Mark City part into a separate loop), and one café (which has a convenient pedestrian crossing near it). However, most of the changes are due to the loss of a pedestrian bridge connecting the north and south parts on the west end (and also this loop to Nakameguro), so I have to loop all the way back to the east side, flipping the order of a bunch of things, although in some ways the course looks less convoluted now. The bridge was replaced by a regular crosswalk, probably because there is a lot more traffic across that road now that the new music college opened. In other news about that course, Il Pleut sur la Seine is back in business, though in a smaller shop on the west rather than east side of the building and they have the cake I need for a cake-off, so probably I'll be there next week if I don't finding something higher priority before then.

Unfortunately, I've decided that Sadaharu AOki's Tarte au Citron isn't really that different from other high-quality lemon tarts, so it loses to the Montelimar and gets kicked out of the greats list.