Saturday, I did another long run. My first destination was Sengoku to visit Très Calme, which was made longer by the fact that I kept running laterally rather than wait for lights to change and the streets don't run straight. As usual, I ate in (the only person). I choose Exquis (not sure that was the spelling provided, but it matches the Japanese phonetics) and immediately forget the ingredients. It's chocolate cake with sponge bottom and a chocolate mousse layer above which has a mellow and fruity taste. Actually, the card said Earl Grey, though I was thinking blackberry, since that's the garnish, but Earl Grey is infused with bergamot, which should be quite a different flavor. In terms of construction, I'm against sponge cake, and certainly wouldn't combine it with a block of mousse. However, it worked perfectly well, so what do I know. Maybe not otherwise remarkable, but the chocolate was harmonizing well with the tea and I can call it excellent. I had this shop was listed with
very good shops, but I'm upgrading it to
excellent. Now the standout
very good shops is Maison Douce, which has the advantage of a sample of only two, one which I have listed as semi-great (it got demoted from great after it's first cake-off round). That's a problem because it's a 35-minute run or more than 1 hour by train, so I keep hoping that it visits Isetan again, but I've been waiting quite a while.
The run continued down to Nihonbashi, to visit Mitsukoshi, and then as far south as Ginza 6, with various stops along the way. Other than the first visit, where I noticed a cake counter that I can now ignore as they visit Isetan and bought a kitchen gadget, it was fairly fruitless, because shops are waiting until Jan. 15 to change their line-ups. Coming back home, I was only just in time for a 2 pm appointment, which I was fortunately able to put off until after a shower and lunch.
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