Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Inspiration Passion Framboise over Pierre Hermé, Baba Infiniment Citron

Friday night, I tried to do some neighborhood loops. I knew I wouldn't do a run on Saturday until evening, since it would be hot, and I had used up my cake quota by Friday, so I was free to run wherever I wanted. To speed things up, I went by bicycle and parked at Shibuya Hikarie (2 hours for free, so I had a target time). There were some wrong turns that required backing up and in particular I lost my nerve near the end after Tokyo Shibuya Evangelical church (this loop is full of churches) and turned where I should have gone straight and wasn't confident what to do to correct it until I went back and looked, so I had to call that a failure. I wasn't even able to do either of the side loops correctly and my ankle was feeling twisted near the end.

Saturday, I walked to Ginza to get cake for a cake-off in the morning, Frédéric Cassel's Inspiration Passion Framboise, to match against a cake I had put on the great list 4 years ago, Pierre Hermé's Baba Infiniment Citron, before my definition of "great" was very firm or I had any intention of doing cake-offs. Also I should mention that I'm not a fan of baba's in general, so I had little confidence in my old relative evaluation. Still, it was on the list, so I wanted to have it again and give it chance. The baba was as I expected, very nice for a baba with interesting accents. Definitely excellent, but not something that I really needed to have again. That leaves Frédéric Cassel's Inspiration Passion Framboise as the winner, and it was definitely superior, but the sourness of the baba (which was fine for it) carried over a little too much to the Inspiration Passion Framboise, so I was less confident about it this time around. My plan for next week is to pair the latter with something that is super sweet for its second round, so hopefully it will be able to show itself off better. I'll have time for a third round at the end of the month (and it's run), so no need to do extra cake-offs.

Saturday night, I tried Friday's run again. On the way, I confirmed Blenz Coffee and expanded the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama south loop to include it. While I as at it, I added the Toraya Café / An Stand ("an" as in the beans, since this is traditional Japanese sweets maker). Having changed the loop, practiced the clockwise run and was successful. The main loop in this run was again the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi--Hachiyama-chou--Nanpeidai-chou--Sakuragaoka-chou--Sarugaku-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop (it's a huge loop and there are lots of little neighbhorhoods), which I did satisfactory this time. I should say that I walked down to it, running only to do the Jinnguumae--Kita-Aoyama south loop, and then on the big loop, rather than using the timer for walking or doing any dashing, I was careful walking up stairs and steep slopes, and also making sharp turns, so my ankles were much better off. Also, Saturday was the hottest day this year in Tokyo I think, which is saying something (high was around 36 degC), so even in the evening, it was still quite hot. I tried to do the Douzenzaka--Maruyamachou--Shinsenchou loop there in the crowded area between Shinsenchou Station and Shibuya Station, to the west of the latter. I had already realized that I needed to break that loop into two, according to the rules applied elsewhere (not having to remember which side of the street I need to be on when there's a choice and a figure eight being two loops, not one), so it's not cheating to report that I was successful with the (newly designated) Maruyamachou--Shinsenchou loop, but failed on the Douzenzaka west loop, though even looking at the map now, I'm not sure where I went wrong for the latter. Anyway, now that I'm recognizing this as a pair of loops, they aren't side loops and I can put off doing them for another time. I also was successful with the Douzenzaka east loop, which circles parts of Shibuya Station, though I have to allow a deviation for construction. So four loops successfully down clockwise (though only one major one).