This was really the second cake (and third for the week, so three left for the weekdays), today, but the first was repeat, so I'll save it for if I come up with a cake-off with it. I ran in the early afternoon for research and wasn't surprised when the weekend-only mille-feuille was sold-out in the evening, but I was surprised to see Addiction, so apparently it's not ended it's run yet, just I'll have to ask for it if I want it early in the day, as they don't have display space, at least on the weekend. I've run into this before, but hadn't thought to investigate it that thoroughly. I should have asked whether the Framboisier is really done, but I'll wait until I'm sure that I want to do a cake-off with it if it's not. Anyway, I got the Saint Honoré Noix et Poire, which is the cake corresponding to this month's "inspiration". This is the 5th saint-honoré and was excellent, like 3 out of 4 of the others (the most traditional caramel one was the only one that didn't especially impress me). This is walnut and pear, as the name says, which is not a combination I've run into before, but both are mild but seem seasonal. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it, so I've lifted this from their site. Hope they don't mind, though I only had one.

The other new cake they have is a pumpkin (?) Halloween milk crepe cake, which sounds terrible all around, so I'm going to try to avoid it but might feel compelled. It might be the milk crepe cake that convinces me that milk crepe cakes aren't terrible, but that seems like a lot to ask. 

Jean-Paul Hévin: Bûchette Hope

Last Thursday, probably again working late, I skipped Isetan and Marunouchi and went straight to Ginza Mitsukoshi by bicycle to get Bûchette Hope, the individual version of the most expensive of the regular sized Christmas cakes (probably because of the decoration ball not on the individual) of Jean-Paul Hévin. Based on descriptions of the full-sized cakes, the top chocolate mousse is Ecuadorean bitter chocolate, next is crème brûlée using Tahitian vanilla beans and a little timut pepper, then the same chestnut and almond biscuit as Bûchette Lichen, then a flour-less chocolate biscuit, and finally a chestnut powder sablé, hazelnuts, and caramel flavored chocolate croustillante. Like the previous day, a relatively crunch/dry cake that is a nice change while still being decadent chocolate. It's easy to say it's a great cake, though it will never get a chance to be in a cake-off. I'll have to wait until next year to see what new Christmas cakes they offer.

At home, I did the indoor workout with weights.

Friday, I did a neighborhood run course, the new Dougenzaka--Maruyamachou--Shinsenchou loop, which merges two new loops. On the way to shopping I discovered a LaDuree salon behind the Bunkamura in Shibuya, not even on Google maps yet, so I had to revise the Kamiyama-chou--Tomigaya--Udagawa-chou loop again. That led to noticing that the Jinnan loops should be merged, which meant the new loop needed to be put in a clump, which has let to a shape up of a few clumps and discovering that the Minami-Aoyama 3&4 loop was linked to the wrong loop. I still have one more clump to fix before it's all sorted out.