Fortnum and Mason: Cassis, Mont-Blanc, Sachertorte, and Victoria Sandwich Cake

Searched for a tea salon or the equivalent that would seat two in a reasonable time around 14:30 on a Sunday, and failed at my first two spots in Ginza. I went and did some shopped and continued on to Mitsukoshi (Nihonbashi Muromachi) and went to my first choice there and still had to wait a while, but not as long and we could sit inside, so better than our other options. A little earlier and being willing to settle for basement seating and we might have gotten seated in Ginza, but there was also the problem of a few items being sold out already, so I'm not sure that we would have been happy there even if we had been seated. At Fortnum and Mason, where we ended up, the cakes are small and though I saw going out that you could get Sachtorte and Cheesecake take-out for under 400 yen each, the inside menu was only sets that included two cakes each. We went with one full afternoon tea set, which also included two scones with clotted cream and jam and little sandwiches for one, along with tea of one's choice, and one cake set with just the two cakes and the tea. They seemed to over-seep the tea, but maybe that's the English way (or the Japanese way: people at work put tea bags in cups and just leave them for a long time, even if the instructions are 30 seconds, though they also may be using cooler water than I, as I always boil mine). Really too much food for two.

Let me start by saying that the Cassis was my bad choice: it was cassis mousse with even more gelatinous (though a little textured, reminding me of canned cranberry sauce). Still okay, but I should have known better. The told me that my other choice was chocolate cake when I asked them to repeat the names (they bring out a tray, but they left out the apple pie that was added later), but I'm assuming that they actually call it Sachertorte, based on the front counter, even though I didn't sense any apricot when I ate it. Still, I thought it was excellent, mostly in comparison. I probably liked the Victoria Sandwich Cake next of the four, which was good, and is sort of like a shortcake with coarser sponge than Japanese shortcake usually has (which was still much more like Japanese shortcake than cake made with actual shortcake, but my partner did not appreciate) and uses white chocolate as the filling around the strawberries. Finally, there was a Mont-Blanc which my partner liked the best, even if she though it wasn't up to the highest standards of the type, and I agreed that it was good.

I went running in the evening and finished off a couple loops only about 1 km long each that had been giving me trouble west if Shibuya (in the sleaziest area, though not in any dangerous way on a Sunday evening, regardless of age or sex: it's Tokyo). That leaves a tiny loop (just around one big building) that needs to be done counterclockwise. I'll probably just stop there when I'm cycling through sometime, lock the bike where it looks least offensive and take a couple minutes to circle the block). Or I'll need to work on the Kamiyama-chou--Tomigaya--Udagawa-chou loop, but that's 2.75 km long and not that close or high in priority, so I'd rather save it for later. I still having loops back past Roppongi to take care of before attacking the biggest loop of them all.