Pierre Hermé, Tarte Infiniment Pistache d'Iran

Skipped a day, since really I already used the week's cake allotment, though I always planned to get ahead on the next week, since I'll be busy the following weekend. Also, I was still hoping to find another great cake to pit against a JPH cake that ends its run Saturday. In response to the previous cake-off win, I had an excuse to visit Pierre Hermé in Jinguumae to get the special Tarte Infiniment Pistache d'Iran, which seemed a good bet based on the recent hazelnut cake. I needed a half-day off to visit on a weekday, since they are only open noon to 7pm now, which is a little tight. It was tight for a morning off, too, and the web site still shows 11 to 8pm, so I had an hour to kill after my first visit. 

Jumping ahead, I did get the cake. I note that the hazelnut cake is praliné, so this pistachio cake is a lot nuttier, and a different nut, so I couldn't get into as much, and there's a lot of it. It was good, of course, but won't make the great list as I had hoped.

Back to on the way there, I hit the Harajuku Sta. area on the first pass but spent the extra hour doubling back to a café on the Sendagaya-Jinguumae boundary and then confirmed that Dandelion Chocolate no longer has macarons in the Omote-Sandou Road shop, as well as that it was empty on a weekday. I also need to update my cake post, as I'm not sure what chocolate I had the opera. They have six flavors, and I think I mistook the chocolate that wen with almond. I need to update those posts next. New places I found/revisited included the Ron Herman Café, which is a top priority as a new place to visit, being the nearest along the neighborhood running route and having several cakes (it's a chain with a shop in Kobe also). I have to wonder if it's just cake from the nearby Amiri (formerly, Nana Gâteaux), but they don't seem to be doing anything right now, so probably not. Though I'm off at least weekend Harajuku cafés for the covid duration, a new building opened near the station that has a Café Aux Bacchanales with cakes out front, though not the same as the great cakes that used to be available from Ginza. Still, I should try them. In the same building (With Harajuku) is Eataly, which I should sample something from. The other one I'm most interested is the Depla Pol Chocolatier, which connects two otherwise dead-end back streets in the maze-like area there south of Takeshita Street, but there are up to four more, though one relates to Shiseidou Parlor, and is on the 8th floor, so maybe irrelevant for both running and take-out cake (which I can get from Isetan).

As a non-cake place, I got the An Scone from Toraya Café An Stand. It was good, which no problems with the an.