Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Carrément Chocolat over Paris S'éveille's Giverny

Running very far is not possible, so  I did a cake-off buying by bicycle, which is why the fruit maybe isn't as originally placed. Still, the cake managed pretty well. I started by going to  Paris S'éveille to get the Giverny, a cake with three wins and one loss. I matched it with the next cake in line that was convenient for the return trip. Since the Aoyama stop isn't open until noon now and there's bicycle parking at Hikarie, I went there to get Pierre Hermé's Carrément Chocolat. In some ways it's a pretty lopsided match, since fruit cakes have a harder time with me than chocolate, but then chocolate cakes have to live up to my memories of other chocolate cakes to stay in the greats group, so it's fair to a certain degree. However, this turned out to be a really nice cake, with some thick chocolate cream in there and good texture. Still, the greatness of Giverny was not questioned. 

Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Carrément Chocolat over Jean-Paul Hévin's Longchamp Praliné

Still behind blogging, but Sunday I ran morning and afternoon, with a cake-off in between. The first run was to Yu Sasage, where I found that they aren't currently making either of the cakes that I want from them, one of which is undefeated after three rounds of cake-offs. I'll have to do a better job of watching the website to see if it reappears, but otherwise I'll probably never get there again. I took the train back to Isetan so I could get my backup pair of cakes, Pierre Hermé's Carrément Chocolat, their standard chocolate cake, and Jean-Paul Hévin's Longchamp Praliné, which finishes its current run on the 15th, so it was priority. Both were two wins and one loss in three rounds, but Pierre Hermé's Carrément Chocolate easily took its third win. It's got a brownie base, crunch middle, and mousse top, which doesn't sound like anything special, but it adds up to a great texture.

The late run was the Ebisu 4 loop, which is short but far away. I had originally thought I was going to do the third clump of loops, but laziness took over. Since I seem to have overdone things, it was a wise choice.

I was greedy Sunday, as I hadn't had a pastry for a week and Sadaharu Aoki, which doesn't have enough new cakes to satisfy me but has among the best pastries, had something new, the Gallette des Rois Nature, where Nature indicates that it is almond filling. This was definitely excellent, so I hope to get the chestnut version before it finishes its run.

Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Carrément Chocolat over Bien-être's Chiboust au Pistache

Tried walking to cake, to see how that would go. On the way, I stopped at some shops that showed up on a Tabelog search of the top 100 cake shops in Tokyo. #1 is actually a "hidden" French restaurant (there's a small sign, but it's a residential area and it's not clear what business the sign is for). Even the couple cakes they have are by pre-order only, so it doesn't count as a full running course site, so I'm not going to alter the enclosing course to include it.

Got the new version of the Bien-être's Chiboust au Pistache (grapefruit accented), which is less tart/pie-like and more traditional cake, which means more chiboust and less pastry base. My first choice (and next on the one-one after two cake-offs list) was Soyeux from Ryoura, but but they no longer had it at Tokyo Midtown's Dean and Deluca. I'll have to swing by the main shop and see whether it still exists, though I'm planning to do a first round next week, which may lead to a second round, depending on whether the season cake survives.
So I wasted a trip to Tokyo Midtown. I had an afternoon appoint, so I went for the easy substitute and went to Shinjuku Isetan and got Carrément Chocolat from Pierre Hermé, which has been a standard for a long time (though I had further backups to choose from at Isetan). That was too much walking. After about 1 hour, the weak points were letting me know that they were there, but not hurting, but even though time after that involved as much train (mostly standing) as walking, it was feeling less good by the time I got home 2 hours later. Then after my appointment, which was about 1 km each way and a stop for grocery shopping, I was definitely wanting to get off my feet. I'll try to avoid that much for the next couple weeks and not expect to run in June either.

As far as I can remember, I liked the old Chiboust au Pistache better, with more pastry base. The pistachio chiboust is still nice, and no one else is providing me with this good of chiboust cake, so it's staying on the great list, but it loses to Carrément Chocolat, which is somewhat standard, but still a great rich chocolate cake, which some variation in texture accents. It's been a while since I've had a new cake from Pierre Hermé (they've dropped a category in ranking since their peak), so it will be nice to get something new; I don't think I saw anything new at Bien-être). However, I saw something new at Sadaharu, which I'm behind on (after raising them a category), and yet I want to work on the huge quite good group of cake shops and busy at the end of the week, so I think I'll just make one trip to Isetan for new cake. If only I had a sponsor...

Cake-off: Paris S'éveille's Théatre over Pierre Hermé's Carrément Chocolat

Did a slow run to Jiyugaoka, not wanting to strain anything before tomorrow's endurance run. Still, I took the time to swing by Bubó Barcelona and verify that they really have only the one type of pastry now, and down a proposed Shibuya--Minami-Aoyama link and the terminal loop, which seem fine, though I won't use them tomorrow. It's a sign of how slow I was going that it took over 1 hour running time to reach this park just under two stations away.

The purpose was to get cake for the first 2nd-round cake-off from the 1st-round winners group, Paris S'éveille's Théatre and Pierre Hermé's Carrément Chocolat. Those are both mainly straight chocolate cakes. Both have good quality chocolate and both have an upper milk chocolate mousse layer, I think, so it was difficult to choose between them. Paris S'éveille's has a denser cream/mousse bottom, so it needs a chocolate shell around it, whereas Pierre Hermé's has a chocolate biscuit/cake and chocolate icing/glaze holding it together. Paris S'éveille's also has a little crunch in it and a little praline or something on top. That accent and the closer balance between the layers worked maybe better for me, so I'm giving this match to Paris S'éveille, which reveals the same bias for cream and mousse over biscuit that I revealed in last weeks' match-up. My next cake-off or two will also be basically straight chocolate (either 1st-round of a recent pair or my top-priority 2nd-round cake that I failed on initially, both of which involve a Jean-Paul Hévin cake as the second cake, which is not too surprising, given the number of great chocolate cakes from them).

Cake-off: Tentation Chocolat vs. Carrément Chocolat

Not a bad cake running day, but still mixed results. First, a little slow. This was deliberate, but I felt afterward that it would have been hard to do otherwise. First I went to Cuoca, where they did not have scrapers for making macarons (I could have checked their website first, but it's somewhat on the way, so why spoil the surprise.) That was about 11 km @ 11.0+ km/h, which was my goal, rather than kill myself doing 12 km/h, which is not something I need on long runs, at least yet. Also, though not painfully sore today, yesterday's speed training was not something I would recommend before the main long run of the week (I was busy this weekend, at least Friday and Saturday, so I ran when the opportunity was there).  From, I went to Au Bon Vieux Temps for the Tentation Chocolat, which is my earliest great cake. I had a back-up plan in case this turned out to be out of season or just something they didn't make anymore, but the staff helped me find it when I asked (I often can't see what's in front of me). Ran into a long train crossing signal (too long not to indicate a problem, so after several minutes, I left the waiting crowds of people and vehicles and ran parallel to the line, since I wanted the shortest route in terms of time, rather than distance) and it resolved itself within another several minutes (I knew I'd eventually at least get to where there was a bridge or tunnel anyway, but the train did finally go past). This was my first trial run of seeing whether I could run a cake like this so far (12+ km), and I wouldn't try it in summer (I might have to use the trains for cake transport then, but then I also don't want to be running super long distances in the worst heat anyway; been there, done that). Thus, I have an excuse to be down around 10 km/h.

Cake survived, though the vibration moved to across it's cardboard base (taped down) to the edge of the box, but it's a pretty solid cake, so no problem, which is good, because then I accidentally flipped it over on its side trying to get it out and had to put it back together. I don't know why they didn't add partitions to keep it in place, which is the normal thing and what they did from the last cake I got there. I might have to specify that it's going to have a rough return home (versus me just eating it in the park).

Next, I ran over to Isetan to get the Carrément Chocolate from Pierre Hermé at Isetan, which was the next great chocolate cake that I blogged. This was also at 10 km/h, though that dropped down to 9 km/h coming back, which I can at least partially blame on more crowded conditions (though right around Isetan, the road is closed to traffic for Sunday during the day.

This was my first try at comparison. I choose two similar cakes, although the Tentation is a mousse cake (a very solid mousse), whereas the Carrément Chocolat is not, though still very moist. Both were great chocolate cakes, which I'm happy about (I imagine that I'm going to find some cakes that I rated as great once that I'm not going to be less impressed with the second time), but I'm disappointed that they were not more different. In the end (and really at the last bites), I decided to go with Carrément Chocolat, as I like the crunch from the bottom layer (though I don't need the gold leaf on top, at all).

Reverse run from Pierre Hermé: Carrément Chocolat

The first reverse part was I bought cake from Pierre Hermé at Isetan, took it home, and then went for a run. I did go by Neues and confirmed that I could catch them open, with cake, but not the cake I was trying to get info on. I might have gotten bread, but 400 yen for half a little loaf is too much, even for German rye.

The other reverse part was I mainly did the reverse course of last time except excluding where I got lost and a double back near the Diet Building. There was a demo there against the U.S. base at Okinawa (judging from their sign) and war (which was all I understood from their chants). I liked the drum, but there was a crowd of people leaving along some streets. It was a change from (tobacco) slaves and (phone) zombies, but still a little in the way. I added an extra up-down early on that I would usually skip.

I took a picture of this patisserie that I have some affection for, although it has only simple things: A la Bon Heure.

Cake was Carrément Chocolat from Pierre Hermé, one of the great [superb] shops, for 756 yen (one of their cheaper ones). The layers are a chocolate square on top, chocolate glaze over everything, a 1/4 layer of chocolate cream, a 1/4 layer of chocolate mousse, and then chocolate "biscuit", which seemed to be a couple millimeters of hard chocolate as base for the upper layers and then a dense 1/2 layer that together gave almost a crunch but not quite. Great cake, although I ate it straight and by myself, so by the end I wished that I had prepared a beverage to cut it with, because it is very sweet.