Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Matcha Marron over Viron's Baba

Only yesterday, I did a first-round cake-off with two cakes new this month. As I mentioned previously, this took a half marathon amount of running. This is because I first went to Éclat des Jours to give them some verrine glasses and get Croissant, which is fluffier than my ideal but still excellent. I ended up going to Shibuya, since that's the only place to get Viron's Baba. On the way there, at about the three hour mark (I'm slow and this was a long slow run), I stopped at the Caffe Pascucci and got a Bombolone Pistatcchio, which was a poor choice, as bombolone are apparently bread rather than pastry, relatively hardy bread. They only had two Baba's at Viron, which was a little ominous, but okay. As a match, I went to Jean-Paul Hévin and got the Matcha Marron. The Baba is great as a classic and the Matcha Marron is great as a JPH-type cake with a new combination of tastes. The previous sample, the matcha stood out, but this time my attention was drawn more to the chestnut and chocolate. In the end, I decided that the more complex taste of the JPH cake suited me better, but I'm not done with the Baba.  

As an addendum, I'll note that the cake for the take-off win was pre-bought (though not intentionally) as a second try on an excellent JPH cake that appeared again in the line-up, Longchamp Feuilleté, which I've decided might be great, so I'm belatedly adding it to the greats list, though I won't be surprised if they change the line-up before it get's a chance to be tested again.