Bien-être: Anzu Fraise Chocolat

It's been a while, but its been a busy week. First, Monday and Tuesday I tried to get the new cake from Bien-être (the last time I had a new cake from there was more than 11 months ago, though I haven't been looked so frequently of late) and failed, though I was fairly late. Wednesday, I had the afternoon off, so I reserved a piece to pick up in the afternoon. I also tried to get the new cake from JPH, but I dallied elsewhere, and so the last piece disappear in front of me. One place a dallied was the quite superb shop Sadaharu Aoki, which does not have a new cake, so I resorted to trying something else again. I prefer to get fresh baked goods in the morning, so I went with the Sablé Choco Chocolat. It's a chocolate covered chocolate sablé-type cookie and was excellent.

I got my ordered cake, passing through the Takeshita area, which I've completed the neighborhood running course clump and by now I have done both the new loops, clockwise and counterclockwise, though I was still working on them then (not necessarily successfully). As expected, the shop was full for eating in, so I brought back my cake for later. Then I went out by bicycle to see if, by chance, I could score the JPH cake at either the Marunouchi or Ginza shops, but no such luck. At Ginza Mitsukoshi, I did hit another quite superb shop which doesn't have enough new cakes to satisfy me, Frédéric Cassel, where I got one of their moelleux, Moelleux Pistache Figue. It was good, I'll say, but I don't need to try others in that line. Still looking for other good types of things from them.

For my second run, I did another neighborhood course, the Suga Shrine clump. I'm mention now that Monday and Tuesday I decided to start sampling the bottom-layer of cake purveyors in that neighborhood. I started with a cheese tart from Lawson 100 and a chuu cream from the Family Mart, both ok to bad (not sure which one left the nasty after taste, because I ate them on the same night): just tasteless. The Waguri Mont-Blanc from the Ministop on Tuesday was definitely bad whipped dairy with a bad aftertaste. Wednesday, though, I got a Chuu Cream from the 7-Eleven, and it was relatively good.

The main event, of course was Bien-être's Anzu Fraise Chocolat. They have this instead of the Cuit Chocolat that had been looking for last weekend, so I thought it might be just that with a different topping, but it's not a baked chocolate cake. I'm sure it's as designed, but it was not working for me at all, so I can't rate it higher than ok (which isn't as devastating to my rating of them as it used to be, but still they were only marginally open to promotion, but not any more, though another shop among the quite excellent shops is, so that should be at least one of my destinations Monday). I should say that this does not reflect what I assume were azuki beans on top, which were fine (though not particularly strong in taste, so maybe not azuki beans, or just ones soaked in anzu juice).

Thursday, I did the large loop of the Suga Shrine course counterclockwise to confirm my memory of it. I didn't try to get real cake, but instead got the Whipped Cream Roll Cake from the grocer My Basket, and it was reasonably good (which is the best any roll cake as been for me).

Friday, even though they failed on the tart, I got a Chuu Cream pack from Lawson 100, because I used to buy these probably years ago now, and found them reasonable. They still are reasonably good.

Looking forward to the weekend, when I can get to shops early enough to get good cake. Actually, based on my reconnaissance Wednesday, I'm planning two cake-offs this weekend, to take advantage of limited availability.