Jean-Paul Hévin: Alexandra

After a morning of pastries and a visit to Jean-Paul Hévin to get Alexandra. I went out again and visited few shops I wanted pictures of over in the Suga Shrine clump of my neighborhood running course, and then tried to run the Gaien clump, where, in reverse order, I found what was wrong with one of the loops and then, when it didn't matter, turned too soon. Hadn't known about a shrine.

On the way back, I enabled verification that I should not get the Chewy Roll (Hokkaido Milk Cream Cake Roll) from Lawson Station.

All this is just to day talking about the Alexandra, which is my least favorite JPH cake as of now. It's Madagascar chocolate mousse (which might be fine), thyme honey infused biscuit, vanilla Bavarian cream, and raspberry gelatin. These don't seem like things I want in a chocolate cake in generally, and they certainly didn't combine well. Actually, the cake had a seedy texture, so maybe there is actual thyme, not just honey from bees that collected pollen from thyme. Well, it was ok; at least it was educational, I suppose: don't get cakes like this.

Frédéric Cassel, Inspiration Citron Vert Pomme Verveine

Catching up on cakes for the last couple weeks, if not on cake-off winners or even Frédéric Cassel's cake-off wins, I did a run to that counter at Ginza Mitsukoshi and got the Inspiration Citron Vert Pomme Verveine, which is a pretty out-of-control name. This is lemon verbena scented Bavarian cream, green apple compote, biscuit with lime peel squeezing baked, lime itself, and the hard base must be the sablé breton. The apple decoration is white chocolate, but its all richer than I expected. The apple dominates but harmonizes will with different gradations of citrus. I would say it was excellent.

Michalak, (Classique) Tarte Yuzu Citron

Just a little muscle training for exercise, due to being late getting home. I brought a (Classique) Tarte Yuzu Citron from Michalak through Isetan. This is a tart with a crisp crumble bottom (according to my translation), yuzu cream on lime Bavarian cream with lemon marmalade. It's pretty sweet and American tasting (for lack of a better explanation), but excellent. Michalak remains at the top the of the excellent shop group, but I'm out of cakes to try. They used to have another type, a clam shell design, but it hasn't been at Isetan lately. I'll need to check the Omotesandou shop. The cakes are still listed online for both locations.

So I'm keeping Sadaharu Aoki's lemon tart in the great category for the next cake-off, assuming the other cake is still available, which I'm planning to confirm tomorrow. I'll also hopefully get more exercise tomorrow, though still bicycling. Not sure whether I'll try walking a few kilometers this weekend, but the squats yesterday didn't seem to have any negative consequences.

Heritage: Miroir

Monday I cycled up to Heritage to get a fifth cake from a shop on the excellent list. I chose Miroir, which is chocolate around pistachio and raspberry (I think) and Bavarian cream, sort of a standard thing, really. Unfortunately, as is often with these types chocolate mousse with cream filling cakes, it didn't really add up to much. No specific complaint other than boring taste, which is sort of the greatest complaint, but for what it was, I don't think they did anything bad. Still, Heritage is look more quite good than excellent after five cakes, so it might not make it to six.

I ran for the first time for more than a week, just around the Yotsuya 3/4-choume area loop, for 17 minutes. It seemed okay (though that was true 3 weeks ago for longer distances) and, more significantly, didn't get me special trouble the next day, so I can try longer, and may need to if the choice is between cycling or running in rain (or no cake).

Actually, I forgot the Japanese phonetics of the name before I left Monday, so I cycled up there again Tuesday and then took the long way down to Mermaid Cafe near Daikanyama Stn. on my neighborhood course down south, which took more than 90 total, so I didn't try to run again too. I got the Kouign Amann as something different. It was like other cheap ones and seemed a little worse for wear for the late hour, but had a very butterscotch-flavored caramelized layer that was working for me, so I would say that it was good (but I forgot to take a picture).

Yoshinori Asami: Orangerie

Finally got to Yoshinori Asami again and bought cake (I've often gone there this year looking futilely for a particular cake, but not to actually buy something new). It's +7 km, which I did 10 km/h going out and 9 km/h coming back. They close at 19:30, so the schedule is a little tight but I was fine. They are relatively new and in a big building (didn't get it all in the shot) a few blocks from the station on a fairly quite street. It's outside the Yamanote Line, so I guess we're in car country and you need to have parking, though I'm not sure I've seen anyone with a car the few times there were other customers.

The cake was a chocolate dome, Orangerie, which is always risky. It was pretty standard in construction. I'm assuming it was something like Bavarian cream inside the chocolate mousse, but that was not exactly what was written on the description (which I didn't bother to figure out the French from the phonetic Japanese). I'm pretty sure it was Bergamot orange flavoring the cream. The chocolate was suitably dark to go with the orange and this was definitely excellent.

Paris S'éveille: Mistral

Changed my Sunday from going to a new place to going to Paris S'éveille for a new cake. I was thinking of going to a new place, since I hadn't visited one for a week, but then I decided that places should remain new until I catch them up to other shops of the same level, in terms of numbers of fresh cakes. Since I'm still doing that with Eclat des Jour, I'm covered.

I did some more exploring of new paths at the beginning (adding maybe half a kilometer and not really finding anything I want to use, though going into Meiji Gaien might still be worth it to stay off the main road longer) and then used the route under Old Yamanote Road that I was on yesterday to do the short path including it, which included part of the route into Gakegei Daigaku Station and avoiding the randomness of my route past Nakameguro Station. It was over 12 km, but just barely closer to 9 km/h than 8 km/h. It's been a while since my knees were sore at the beginning. There will be a 30 hour rest before the next run, so hopefully that will be enough to cover and I won't have to take an actual rest day (again, greed is the issue).

They had a couple new cakes that the "Chef" recommended that looked good, but they also had Mistral, which seems like something I've seen before but not posted on, at least. This is a pâte sucrée chocolate base, with a biscuit biscuit, lavender Bavarian cream, chocolate coating, and the fruit is black currant and blackberry, plus there is wine, though I forget the details. It all works together and of course I like chocolate, so I thought it was excellent.

Bubó Barcelona: Xabina

After a brisk walk to Isetan to find that they did not have the cake I needed for my next cake-off, I headed home and then set off for Bubó Barcelona. This time, I did not get lost and it did take only half the time. Total, it was just under 6 km, done at 9 km/h.

The shop and street were empty of customers when I went, though someone came in after me. They had 10 types of cakes, so I won't run out of things there soon. I got the Xabina, which is basically a familiar type: mousse chocolate cake with a little Bavarian cream inside (not sure why). In this case, though, there are spices and olive oil involved, and you can definitely taste that there is something different going one. These types of cakes pretty much depend on the quality of the chocolate and this was definitely not bad, and interesting, so I'll say it's excellent and move this shop up to the Quite Excellent category, which means I'll have to make frequent visits there, at least until they disappoint me.

Worth mentioning, before I ate my cake, I had to go out for regular groceries, and I noticed an animal running along the fence between housing units. It was cat-sized, but something wasn't quite right. It came back and couple times, popping and running along the top of the fence (the wire fence: there isn't flat top), and I saw it had a triangular face. Apparently, we have civets (https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/whats-that-smell-could-a-civet-be-nearby). I was told Tokyo has feral "Tree civets", or maybe it was "Forest civets", but I'm not sure that's a real thing and the Japan Today article was less certain about whether they are invasive.

Paris S'éveille: Poire Caramel

Did my long weekday run, maybe the longest I've done between two full work days (assuming I make it to work tomorrow). It was about 22 km round trip to Jiyugaoka, a fast 11 km/h out and a deliberately slow 9 km/h back with a Poire Caramel (ポワール　キャラメル; 600 yen), which is my 17th kind of fresh cake from Paris S'éveille. It's a fruit dome and the fruit has much of its texture, so it is not just gel, but the caramel was too subtle for me (in Bavarian cream, though maybe other places; I carefully read the description, but time and running wipes it away), so it was just like eating fruit, good fruit, but still just fruit, and running for fruit doesn't much interest me. Still, I consider this a superb shop and I want more from there eventually.

La Base Secrète du GAMIN: Winter Mousse au Chocolat

Had enough time to try a longish weekday run to a new shop, La Base Secrète du GAMIN, which is new within the last year but is actually part of a whole GAMIN group of restaurants. This one is down in the north Sengenjaya Station shopping area (you can just see it from the north east-west shopping street if you look diagonally at the right moment). Shortest way is through Shibuya Station, so I looped down the usual way turning past Aoyama Gakuen University (which has a huge mural poster up on their Ekiden running team) to the next crossing sound and came back (although I missed a turn and went a little bit out of my way on the way there). Windy today, and cooled off fast. I might have seen some slow flakes, or maybe just it was they way the streetlight reflected off stray drops in the air. I managed 11 km/h there, but with the huge sack they have me (with a huge box, relative to the cake), only 9 km/h back (over 8 km each way). That's okay. Yesterday I ran without cake, doing about 10 km total but earlier on did eight 200 m speed intervals with 14.0 km/h as the target, but five were actually 15.0+ km/h and one 16.0+ km/h, which is as much as I need of those faster speeds for now, so I'll either need to get onto doing 15 km at 11 km/h at the Moat track, or see whether I can keep up 13 km/h for intervals of 1000 m. Anyway, since I did speed and then slow jogging, that maybe counts as fat-burning training, though the method I heard was two 1000 m (separated by 3 minutes) intervals fast enough to be out of breath.

The cake, in it's huge box and bag, blown horizontal by the wind, did not stay stuck to it's plastic base, but for a mousse cake, it was fairly firm, so it was less battered than it might have been. It's mousse, but maybe with meringue for firmness? It's flavored with Yuzu and orange Bavarian cream, which is where the winter part comes from. The chocolate flavor is not strong for a mousse, but it's there and harmonizes well. It's easy to for me to say that this was definitely good (and better than a doughnut), but only over time did I final decide that I should call it excellent, requiring me to get back there fairly soon (although the selection is not huge, so I don't have to be in that big a hurry, but maybe if varies).

Thursday: Chianti: Juliet

Ran back to Marunouchi again today, this time to the cake shop for Chianti in the Marunouchi building. Chianti was just at Isetan (where I would have saved 8%). Got Juliet (648 yen), which is a pink raspberry heart-shaped cake. Yes, I should know better than get anything not round or square, since that means gelatin. In fact, I ran this cake 5+ km at 10 km/h and found that they had not actually restrained it in any way inside its box. Of course, I tried to be careful, but was surprised to find it perfectly intact. That's some well-set gelatin. Is I hinted, I was not impressed by it, though it was typical of its ilk, so I can call it good. Someone who likes this kind of cake should judge whether it's excellent. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt calling it good, though it was definitely not bad, just not worth bothering with to me. The run there was on the low end of 12 km/h.

Not sure when I'll run next, as I'm busy this weekend. That might mean that I'll take a long run somewhere next week on a work night, assuming I can get off close to on time (though there are couple of far off places that are open to 9 km, so maybe I could start a little late: I'd have to look up how far they really are).

Viron: Tendresse

Ran to Viron in Marunouchi. As planned, I ran faster (around 7.6 km/h for 6.1 km) and started running earlier, but still walked back (no rain this time, so just had to stop for lights and cake). They had a couple cakes I hadn't seen before and I got Tendresse for 702 yen. This is sort of a chocolate mousse dome, although not that much. More of it was Bavarian cream. I don't recall whether the outer layer of chocolate mousse or the Bavarian cream that has it, but there is passion fruit, which harmonized well. The outer layer of chocolate (?) was a little gummy, but it is still pretty hot (high 30 degC today) and I haven't gotten to dome cakes, because I'm working on nut-based biscuits. The bottom is feuillantine praliné, which is classy compared to a sponge base, so that balances it out and I have no hesitation saying that this is excellent.

Origines Cacao: Bacchus

As planned, I did not run this weekend. Instead, I baked a new cake recipe that I had been collecting ingredients for and did my first cycling for a long time. My knee seems to be okay for it.

The ride was out to Jiyugaoka to Origines Cacao to check whether they are "near-great" and ended up being about a 26 km round trip. I timed the first part was doing about 14 km/h, trying to go the equivalent of a walk as far as effort. It gives me a benchmark. Supposedly wind resistance makes speeding up on a bicycle more difficult for running, which I don't know how I'll handle, but I'm treating this as the equivalent of one-fourth the 7 km/h running distance, as far as my budget (I'm rescaling my budget to 7 km/h running from 6 km/h walking, though that information is not so useful to anyone else).

At Origines Cacao, I struggled to find something that looked good that I hadn't had, so I went with the promoted new one, Bacchus, for 594 yen, which is a chocolate cake with cognac and apricot. It's good, being layers of soft sponge with liquor and chocolate frosting, but maybe because chocolate layer cake is too much like what I've had plenty of in the US, it's not really so exciting. Sorry, it was so bright, I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of (and I forgot the shop again, as usual).

This is not the cake I'm looking for, so Origines Cacao goes back in the "excellent" list. That only leaves me five near-greats, whereas I wanted at least doubt the great, of which currently I have four, although if Dalloyau dropped a level, that would work out, so I keep working on the bottom of the near-greats until I get them up to where I want (half the number of cakes of the greats) before I try to update them.

At least the croissant from Au Bon Vieux Temps was excellent. They have delicious looking baked goods, but I don't think I've gotten anything before.

I also got another chocolate from Henri le Roux on Saturday, Madagascar: This was was excellent too.

Learned/got experience with a lot in my last cake attempt, Essor, I think it's called (I don't have the page with the real French name, just the phonetic Japanese). There was nothing that I did well, but I got the general idea about several parts. The result was pretty ugly, so no photos and I ate the evidence.

Essor has two layers of hazelnut biscuit, which was okay, but a little underdone because I used an upside-down tart form on top of a silicon mat because I don't have a 14.4 cm diameter round Flexipan (nor am I able to find out how I could get one, since even the company doesn't list that size, though it would probably would be about 5000 yen, which is more than I want to pay). For the (gelatin) hazelnut Bavarian cream disk, I completely failed to whipped up the cream, and splattered most of it around the kitchen: the new balloon whisk with the new mixer is proving difficult to use. However, it tasted good, and wasn't overly gummy (though would be different with more and proper whipped cream). This time I needed a 12.5 cm Flexipan (also unavailable), so I used a right-side-up one with some plastic wrap, which was a little leaky but worked well enough. The　(gelatin) orange concentrate and liquor layer, whose phonetic French name I can't figure out besides the orange part, really didn't like my substitute for the 12.5 cm Flexipan and broke into pieces when I tried to separate it from the form bottom (also, I had to boil down my first attempt and try again, as the gelatin and concentrate separated during freezing). This was gummy and too strong to sample by itself, but actually was fine in the cake, except for being ugly. Finally, I had to submerge/embed these layers in creme chocolat-blanc d'orange, again with a little gelatin; I tried chilling everything, but still had a splatter problem, so I did it by hand and didn't whip it enough (I don't really know what 6-minute whip looks like). The 15 cm ring form, which I did buy, leaked, but that might be due to the cream being too thin. It formed a solid cake okay and was good, though I'm not really that interested in cake that tastes that orange, so I won't be trying this again. I still have some orange concentrate, but maybe I'll use it and the liquor for macaron filling. Very educational, though. Now I just need to learn to whip cream, since it's half the next cake, Gateau Fraise.

Sunday: Jean-Paul Hévin (Isetan chocolate bar)

Catching up on my reporting (so I can get something new, after  walking there), I went to the Jean-Paul Hévin chocolate bar at Isetan. We got one cake, the Bergam for 699 yen, and one "ice", Glace Pilée au Chocolat Rhubarbe Mangue for 1388 yen.

The cake Bergamot is orange-flavored chocolate mousse with a little orange Bavarian cream. There are also some ganache and crunchy bit biscuit toward the bottom. The orange just blends with the chocolate, I couldn't really taste it to identify it, though there is a fruitiness. This, finally, is a great cake. I can look forward to having it again.

Ice deserts like Glace Pilée au Chocolat Rhubarbe Mangue I don't get. I don't really even like chocolate ice cream any more, I find, though I would prefer that to "ice". It's chocolate favor with with mango and rhubarbe (though I didn't notice the latter). There is some gummy stuff in there too, which I don't know what it was. It was not really bad, but for me, only okay. Not something I would ever order myself.

Paris S'éveille: Giverny

It's the weekend, so I went to Jiyugaoka by bicycle, doing some reconnaissance along the way.

Not part of the plan, but I noticed Roulé (by 1904), so I stopped and verified through the window that they have at least a couple cakes besides roll cake.

Failed to find the pastry shop in the Cerulean Tower Tokyu: it's not shown on the floor map, but I've now learned what restaurant it is next to according to the website. 

Failed to find Patisserie de la Famille in Sangenjaya (from Sweet Sonobe), but it seems to have morphed into Patisserie Susucrier, which was advertising birthday cakes prominently; I'll pass till I hear something good about it. 

Failed to find Patisserie Octobre, but only because I was looking at the Plaisir location, so now I know Plaisir has closed up [or perhaps not], although the name is still used for activities at Shinjuku Isetan's New York Week now. 

I had a hard time figuring out a good way to get from there to Paris S'éveille and kept going the wrong way. Finally got to the target Paris S'éveille and got the Giverny for 620 yen, this time take-out, so I could take a picture. This is pistachio and raspberries, which may sound familiar from earlier in the week, but this cake was definitely better than okay. It was at least excellent and I'm going to go with great, although that may just be by comparison. It's pistachio cream, raspberry, bavarian cream, on a pistachio biscuit on top of a lime-flavored chocolate crunch bottom. Quite satisfying in terms of flavor and sweetness.

Escaped without dropping more money at Cuoca, because I was just there and haven't had a chance to try out the recipe I bought the hazelnut powder for (or the carob powder I bought a while back).

Friday: Frédéric Cassel, Jivara

Did a little running after 4 days rest for the back tendon on my left knee. Managed 8.3 km very slow. No problem for maybe 7 km, but then I decided I had to stop. That's not too bad for such a short rest. I'll stick to bicycling this weekend and see how I am for running Monday.

Went to Frédéric Cassel in Ginza Mitsukoshi, and they had some new cakes for April, unlike Henri le Roux, so they are more like a real cake place in that respect. This time's cake was Jivara, which is a kind of milk chocolate I've learned (I always have to look up the phonetic Japanese to try to figure out what the Roman spelling might be). It's mainly milk chocolate mousse, although drier than normal for mousse, almost "cake-like", if that makes sense in context. There was also Bavarian creme inside and hazelnut, although I'm not sure how the latter was mixed in, besides the obvious ones on top. It was well balanced and maybe excellent (versus definitely excellent), but I'd prefer better for 756 yen, though the price is not surprising for the location.