Henri Charpentier: The Shortcake & Honey Lemon Rare Cheese

No running, but was in Isetan last Friday and was asked who had (strawberry) short cake. Not my thing, so I wasn't really prepared (or I would have suggested one of a couple other places), but figured that was exactly what Henri Charpentier was for and of course they were well supplied. As a second cake, I choose the Honey Lemon Rare Cheese. Despite not regarding them so highly these were both high-quality definitely good cakes. I particular liked the cheesecake, which bordered on excellent, though there's a lot of competition in these rare cheesecake category, so I think I'll stick with good. So if their line-up looks appealing to you, then I wouldn't discouraging you from these maybe more traditional/conventional fresh cakes.

(Sun.) Henri Charpentier: Napoléon Pie

After visiting the pond at Ueno Park, we went down to a Ginza for a café. At was after 7 pm, so we went with Ginza Henri Charpentier, where the last order was 7:30 pm, which was fine with us. There might have been one other customer there, but a couple people might have arrived after us, though a friend said they couldn't visit when they tried. Guess it varies.

Went with the  Napoléon Pie, which inside is like mille-feuille (custard and strawberries), but only had a single layer of pastry top and bottom, covering sponge. It's definitely good but not that exciting to me. We also went with the full Crêpes Suzette package, with seasonal fruit (already forgot; peaches?) and ice cream. Again, not so much my thing, but an interesting experience. They make them next to your table, so it's a whole show with commentary. For the pictures, the picture of the cake was before splitting, but they split the crêpes for us (though we had to split the ice cream ourselves. so it was not perfect).

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.