L'Essentielle, Cassisier

Thinking back to Wednesday, I went first Isetan from their visiting shop. I had one cake from L'Essentielle, so I figured I'd try another. I got the Cassisier. For running, I visited various parts of my neighborhood running course that I wanted to change and verified that they would work. I wanted to shorted some parts that I have to use to go most places and decided that I didn't want to cut through Keio Univ. Hospital, though people always have at that point. The original plan had been for a short run, but it ended up about an hour, once I connected up the parts.

The Cassisier, which is obviously cassis (black currant), is white chocolate based and has star anise as the spice accent (accents). This is just too soft a cake for me. I need a biscuit, cookie, or crunchy layer, I guess. There was enough going on with the top that I have some respect for it, so I'm calling it good, but I'm not in a hurry to sample from them again.

I planned no running for Friday, so Thursday I went for a long run to try to do a successful one-way neighborhood run to what I thought were the nearest new parts, as well as a little part that want to reacquaint myself with that was convenient to add.  These included absolutely confirming the Nishiebisu east and west loops, followed by the new Ebisu--Hiroo east and west loops. I'll have to change the last one, maybe, because I've since found a new religion church that I missed, but that's no big deal. I also did the Higashi north loop on the way home, just so I can skip it when I redo the central and south loops. I ran into one pedestrian bridge blocked off, so I cheated and used the intersection to cross, but I'm not going to scrap the run for that. If I had known, I would have crossed at a different bridge, though it's longer, but I wan't willing to double-back to get to it. It was a +2 h run, so I made use of a new snack source only the route, the Baking Shu in the Shibuya Stream complex and got Raisin Coupé, which is a bun. After an hour of running, I needed it. Actually, I sent my lunch hour trying to get a question answered by the cell phone company person, so I was pretty underfed that day (though more chocolate than usual). It might have been too much bread for another day, but it was 200 (approximately) well spent, and good.

Friday, I refrained from running, but there was shopping and exercising indoors, so I got a Chausson aux Pommes from Hediard. It's very precisely made, but ultimately boring, though still good.

Frédéric Cassel, Mille-Feuille Caramel Pomme

Still catching up, Sunday I went out reasonably early to do a one-way neighborhood course run. I had just found a neglected area, Roppongi 7, which is just across southwest from Tokyo Midtown, so relatively close. I had missed the crosswalk down near the National Art Center, Tokyo. There is not a whole lot there, but they have a park, a cake shop, a bakery, a shrine, a couple temples, and a couple shrines in a compact area. It's possible to cross over to the northeast end of Nishiazabu, but I can't find any sites there that I would visit.

From there, I left the course and went exploring for future runs.  On the way, I stopped for a pasty at Maison Landemaine. I went to the location at Azubudai, across from the southeast end of the Akasaka-Azabudai-Roppongi-Toranomon loop, there should be one already on that loop, further north that I haven't visted yet. I got their Kouign Amann, which was ribons of pastry folded into the usual hockey puck shape, with a hard caramelized layer on top. Very fancy, and good, but did not really work for me. In generally, their pastries are pretty expensive.

For future runs, first I went over to finish photographing sites on the Shibakouen--Toranomon west and east loops, and then moved on to Atago and Toranomon. These are all going to be small loops, since this is a really urban area surrounded by main streets, though there are enough pedestrian bridges and crosswalks without signals to get me just south of Hibiya Park to the north. To get east, I'll have to go south through Shiba Park, though it can't really advance very far, so this branch is going to come to and end unless I can turn south.

There was cake, but I screwed up sort of (I checked my list, but a hyphen through off my alphabetization) and got a repeat, Mille-feuille Caramel Pomme. Last time I rated it good, which is understandable, but this time I was more in a mille-feuille mood and would call it excellent, so I didn't mind the mistake so much.

Monday, I took a rest from running and cake, but went to Isetan and visited Hediards and got their Domestic Wheat Kouign Amann (if I've got the name right), which was a more conventional version, which I thought was excellent.

Hediard, Pain au Chocolat

Went for a second pastry from Hediard at Isetan and chose the Pain au Chocolat. Then I went running, intending to do the loop through Gaien, now that the pedestrian bridges connecting it to Minami-Aoyama and Minami-Aoyama to Kita-Aoyama are renovated. The bridges are fine, but it turns out that the north end of the planned loop through Gaien is under construction on the north end, across from the new National Stadium (but they were only ripping up the other side of the road). At least I could do the longer sections of the Jinguumae east loop, the Kita-Aoyama central loop, and the Minami-Aoyama north loop, though the latter has a new access to the main road on the east end, so I used that. Also, I just noticed that Chocolat Chic is no more, though they seemed to be just average as far as meeting my tastes, so I won't really miss them and there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to change the neighbor route by them yet. Shrines and temples are more dependable about sticking around.

The pastry was excellent. The chocolate is just what you see on the outside, though it is enough. It's an interesting design choice. Not sure why the picture is blurry, though the lens gets a lot of abuse.

(TW) Jean-Paul Hévin: Tarte au Chocolat Constanza

Did a research run past Marunouchi Jean-Paul Hévin to Viron to Toshi Yoroizuka to Origines Cacao to Dalloyau on Tuesday the first, but only the first stop had anything new. It was not too hot, so I could do 12+ km for 9 km/h.

The cake is called Tarte au Chocolat Constanz, although it was more like a giant bon-bon chocolate than a cake or a tart. Rather than having a tart crust, the tart shell is solid dark chocolate. The filling is chocolate mousse and a few fins of solid chocolate, so the only taste is chocolate, though obviously, there are differences in texture. The main issue then is how good is the chocolate, and it was excellent. The other issue is how eating this was different from eating mousse or just tablet chocolate, and my belief was that this was a nearly perfect chocolate creation. The solid chocolate gave some crunch and encouraged chewing but because it was mostly mousse, I did not have experience of chocolate pieces filling my mouth, like when eating a chocolate bar. It was a great cake and I hope that they make more tarts like this one with other kinds of chocolate. I should say that, as the name suggests, this is made from Dominican cacao.

Since I had a good cake Tuesday, it was reasonably cool, and I was busy (one excuse for being so late writing up these blogs), I did a cake-less run Wednesday. Of course, I still need a snack, so I got a Pain aux Raisins from Hediard at Isetan. It was excellent, as one would expect. The running was 18+ minutes averaging 10 km/h up and down a nearby 250 m long slope. Apparently, it's too flat for Google giving elevation information.

Henri Charpentier: Sachertorte

Well, I avoided them for two years, but illness and cake lust drove me to finally go to Henri Charpentier, which was most convenient at Isetan. My avoidance was because they generally have soft boring cakes, which I bypassed this time by taking the Sachertorte (540 yen), which is a relative heavy cake, even there. And the balance with the apricot and sweetness (the chocolate probably matters, but is relatively weak, which is what I would expect) means it was unexpectedly excellent, so I can't dismiss them as uninteresting, though I've never thought they were incompetent, so it's not a shock. On my personal list, they now come on the newly arranged "Quite good" list, which is the bottom few dozen of the top several dozen Tokyo cake shops, most of which I've only sampled from a two or three times. Only one cake means I should get back there and try something else sometime relatively soon.

I haven't had any other fresh cake lately, but I got some Mohave Raisin and Walnut Brod from Andersen, which was excellent toasted and buttered (so it's not really fair to compare it to untoasted and buttered bread), and Cinnamon from Hediard, which is very heavy on the walnuts and good, but not better than my modest expectations, both again via Isetan, which is about as far as I'm up for currently.