DelRey: Pistachio Chocolat

Since they were at Isetan, I wanted to get a third cake from the Quite Good shop DelRey. I got the Pistachio Chocolat (I know, mixed languages). For the run, tried out the latest version of the neighborhood map starting from the Daikyouchou Bridge to the Shinanomachi Stn. Link and all connected parts east, doing everything in reverse, which makes everything look different (like landmarks for turns), so it really feels like a different course. I collapsed some loops and it's down to a little over 9 km, which I did in 60 or 61 minutes, which I think is pretty good, because there are a lot of stairs and hills.

The cake did not start too well with me, because the outside is pistachio mousse which is very gelatinous, which I hate. But it was pretty chilled to begin with and letting it heat up a little really helped. This has a lot of feuillantine in side, to give it crunch and some chocolate mousse, though not a lot. somewhat because I could over come the gelatinous problem and enjoy a strong pistachio flavor, I'll can say that this was excellent cake.

[Sat] DelRey: Chocolat Dome

Had a relatively busy Saturday, but I fit in photographing a selection of neighborhood sights along my neighborhood running course (here's a tiny version which I just spent way too much time making). I ran about 12 km at 9 km/h in just a little rain at the beginning, not including walking under Ginza. First I went to Hidemi's to confirm that they had a cake that I want for a future cake-off (they told me it should come into season in a month about three weeks ago) and then went to the DelRey patisserie (buried back along a foot path from a back street in Ginza) for a second cake. I went for the Chocolat Dome. It was good enough, but nothing special, unlike the price. Maybe it need more time to warm up first, as the flavor was not very strong.

DelRey: Hazelnuts Chocolat

Ran over to the Ginza Mitsukoshi to catch DelRey's last day there and got the Hazelnuts Chocolat (756 yen). The run was fine, as far as I can remember, averaging 9 km/h over about 11 km, despite my walking maybe 1 km of that into and out of Ginza in the subway tunnels to avoid lights. The cake was kind of a tough one to rate, as I wanted to like it and it was high quality, but it was very mild and soft, whereas I'm more into intense and crunchy. Still, in the end, it was something I'd want to be able to make, so I'm going it excellent, so I should get back there before too long.

Today actually I was back just to see whether Delrey's replacement had any cake on offer. They didn't, so I tried the Almond Croissant (405 yen) from Dominique Ansel. It was a typical almond paste calorie bomb and definitely good, but did not stand out other than being maybe larger than average (though they are often pretty large). This was about 1 km more than yesterday and 10 km/h, even with the same walking, though I got a little turned around at some points, so there is a distance error of a couple blocks.