Cake-off: En Vedette's En Vedette over Fiorentina Pastry Boutique's Estate

For this weekend's cake-off, I finally got around to using En Vedette's name-sake cake in a second-round winner's cake-off. I was figure it was always around and a recent entry, so there was no hurry, but the second half of the year is advancing, so I should get to last year's cakes. The opposite is a very recent entry, from last month, Estate ("estah-te"). These are both somewhat subtle cakes, so it seemed like a good match. Estate is fruity with strong white chocolate taste spiked with pistachio and En Vedette is chocolate raisin spiked with rum (though maybe there is alcohol in Estate as well--I need to check again). I'm going with En Vedette and the smooth rum flavor over the sweetness of Estate as a better balance in my greats list.

The run was 1:5 min walking:running, taking 50 minutes of running to get to En Vedette (somewhat because that was a good cut-off place and I wasn't going to get another 5 min running), which was faster than I expected, as I feel I'm running really slow these days. I should hit the Gaien track and do some timed training. I brought it back by train and then went out again for Estate at Roppongi hills, running another 20 min or so and walking the cake back. Added a few pictures to my neighborhood map.

Cake-off: Fiorentina Pastry Boutique's Estate over Lenôtre's Concerto

Had the afternoon off and collected cakes by bicycle and then did a little running, still on a 3:7 walking:running ratio and totaling only 34 minutes of running, but it had been 10 days, so it seemed like enough. If I'm reasonably okay tomorrow, depending on the weather, I'll trying running to Ginza instead of using a bicycle.
While at Ginza today, earlier than last evening I was there, I check Origines Cacao and they do have some actual cakes that I've had among their seasonal cakes, so I need to keep visiting, which is my plan for Wednesday and Thursday.

The running was just down to confirm some newly added sites on the way to two small new loops, the Jinguumae 5 loop counterclockwise, to complete the Harjuku south clump and the Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama south loop (on which I could not find and Kiri café), to complete the Omotesandou west lump.  I also confirmed a Natural Lawson on the Kita-Aoyama central loop has fresh baked goods worth adding them (no changes to the route required) but that the Streamer Expresso on the Minami-Aoyama north loop does not. Next I need to do the Shibuya east loop and check out some sites around there, but the next loop will be clear back redoing the huge main loop around Akasaka (which I did only by bicycle), since I've found another bakery in the middle that I need to swing around, and possible split off a little loop north of Tokyo Midtown to include a Natural Lawson.

Both the cakes today were recent new ones I'm not completely competent about, so comparing them to each other didn't tell me a whole lot. The chocolate one, Concerto, from Lenôtre was still really nice, but for variety, I'm choosing the white chocolate and pistachio and citrus fruit (I think) Estate from the Fiorentina Pastry Boutique. I still will go to Lenôtre first, because I've only had one cake from them and they are the backup for Origines Cacao now (though I noticed another Ginza 6 cake shop, so when I need a new place as a backup, I can use that, or the pie shop there, if I can wait for cake), but next in priority is another from Fiorentina, though we're coming up on the end of the month, so I'll have to check JPH and Sadaharu Aoki soon. Before that, I'll try to get Estate into a second-round cake-off this weekend with En Vedette.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Estate

After visiting a top 3 shop (quite superb) Tuesday, and a top 15 shop (quite exceptional) on Wednesday, I went for a shop in the quite fine group that I want to slim down to being part of the top 63 shops. This time it was the Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, which is the pastry shop attached to the Tokyo Grand Hyatt Hotel in Roppongi Hills. It's been more than two years since I was last there. On the way, I ran the 550 m bordering the Akasaka Palace grounds and walked the rest, but was a start at running again.

As cake, I got Estate, I think. My main concern was not to get the same cake as previously more than worrying about the details, so I didn't finish reading the card before ordering. From the card and the taste, this definitely has peach and liquor. It also obviously has a lot of white chocolate. I'm not sure about the cake layers, as there was a brown layer and a green layer. I ate with green tea and either the green in the cake was green tea or it was pistachio that harmonized with the fruit. In any case, it was very nice and different from other cakes I've enjoyed, so I'm going to say that it was great. I don't have any candidates to quickly get it in a cake-off and it seems seasonal, so the immediate consequence it to put it at the top of the quite fine category, making a candidate for promotion. I'll try to get back there in the next couple weeks.