Il Fait Jour: Mousse Chocolat

Got my cake through Isetan from Il Fait Jour, which are otherwise not convenient. This sixth cake was Mousse Chocolat. It was good, being similar to other chocolate mousse cakes, with some sort of Bavarian cream in the middle, probably (I didn't look at the card). The cake and the shop overall, however, isn't that exceptional, so I'll demote them to the quite good group of cake shops and maybe never get back to them for a seventh.

The running was a neighborhood run again, a little under an hour. I'm still working on recently changed loops. At least I finally was able to do the west Shinanomachi one clockwise (which seems like the harder direction). It's only all the dead-ends that make it hard to remember, though if I paid better attention, they might all be marked by traffic signs. I failed at doing the Sendagaya central loop counterclockwise (messed up the turn at the new south corner, which gave me trouble clockwise as well), but at least I could finish off confirming both directions for the Sendagaya southeast loop, which goes through the tunnel under Zuienji.

Il Fait Jour: Montblanc

I'm a week behind, due to the New Year holiday. Running was just local trying to memorize the local course. For cake, I took advantage of Il Fait Jour visiting Isetan. I mostly know them for their tart-like cakes, and I've had mostly excellent ones, but went with the Montblanc (I remember one of the other options was a chocolate mousse done, which I had had recently). This cake has a different look, but tasted like a pretty basic mont-blanc. It was just good, which is fine but of course disappointing.

Il Fait Jour: Tarte Citron

Yesterday the rain stopped and I didn't want to be stuck with 7 km for the week, since it's kind of a benchmark for how fast I can increase, so I went out and did another 3 km of running, either in 2 minute or 200 meter stretches separated about half that of walking. I did part on the Gaien course so I could make sure I was running between 7 and 8 min/km, which is really slow (walking was less than 10 min/km). I was kind of pressing my luck running, though. I'm okay today, but it was not hard to convince myself to finally take a rest (instead, I did running stretches and exercises inside). That gives me 10 km within a week, so my goal/limit next week, I think, is 19 km, with 2 km of that 6 to 7 min/km (probably, I'll go back to the same course next Monday or Tuesday for those). Then the week after that I can do 27 km with 6 km of that faster than 7 min/km. Maybe I'll want to completely eliminate the super slow 8 min/km pace (it's a little awkward), or maybe I'll want to keep it around for really long runs. We'll see. I don't expect to try anything with more than 5 km of running next week, though I don't have a particular plan for how I'll ramp up the maximum. Just a 2 or 3 km a week would be fine, and I'm going to be stricter about the rests afterward.

Today, I did rest, but I went for cake, which I did not do yesterday (instead, I ate a lot of cherries with a lot of syrup, so getting cake is a huge improvement as far as diet). I already had three excellent cakes from Il Fait Jour, so they are ahead in that category, but since they were visiting Isetan, where I can get a discount and it is very convenient, I decided to get one. Unfortunately, I had already had the best three choices of not many. At Isetan, there were lots of little glasses of things, which is true of lots of places these days, but I have very little interest. As an Isetan exclusive, there as Tarte Citron for 486 yen, which sounded much better than a seasonal mixed fruit tart (which I've never found to be good anywhere, since most fruits require some subtly to work in cake, not to forget working with each other). The Tarte Citron was perhaps good, which is giving them the benefit of the doubt. It is tiny, which is not a big deal, since I got the idea after half. The thick visible base is a semi-firm (for cake) but moist butter tart maybe, or a dacquoise, though I don't have enough experience yet to say either way. On top of that is a little lemon gelatine dome (hidden) which was fine under a several-millimeter cover of probably meringue (or just whipped egg whites, as there was no identifiable taste). Nothing bad about it, just nothing impressive about it.

The plan for tomorrow is 4 km of running as part of finally visiting Piece Montee again, although I better confirm that they are still there first, since it's been a while since I've been by there.

34 km to Il Fait Jour (Tachikawa Station)

Route was approximately this, although poor navigation and deliberate but fatigue-addled (gack: spent more time trying to figure out the spelling of this word) judgement may not all have been accounted for. Most of the route was pretty good for running. Liked this part of Kanda River and following the road north of Chuuou line was also nice: good width of sidewalk, nice enough neighborhood, and not too much traffic. Last bit was not great, but then it was also not the original plan (although it is what Google would have told me to do). This is in the very not detailed part of my central Tokyo map, so I need to add notes about turns better so I know what intersection names are if I'm going to follow a less obvious route. Did fairly well most of the time, though.

Started out too fast, but if I don't go fast at the beginning, then I never will. Ended up with 3 28' for the run and then another 12' of running from Shinjuku Station (which was slow). Considered going on to Yotsuya Station and coming back or switching to the local at Shinjuku Station, but kept it simple.

Not a big counter of the cake shop, so there might be better things elsewhere (although not that much more listed on web site, but they don't have the fig tart, which they did have and I know is good), but could find at least two good things (the berry tart would have been the next choice) at the Il Fait Jour counter in Ecute at Tachikawa Station. Got the signature tart for 567 yen, which is navel orange tart base with an Earl Grey mousse which includes orange peal. Excellent.

The second was Melissa (the Francois Pralus chocolate) for 511 yen. This is a chocolate dacquoise (I always have too look up what that means, which I think is just a cake having layers of meringue and/or cream in this context, although this definitely was specifically mousse). I'm not a fan of milk chocolate in general, but it is often a good choice versus the dark stuff, as in this case. Excellent cake/tart.

Il Fait Jour (at Isetan): Fig tart

When I was out shopping for bread for dinner and ingredients for baking (the trick is to find reasonable butter, since the Japan butter shortage continues), I got a Fig tart from Il Fair Jour, who are the visiting shop at Shinjuku Isetan. I had forgotten that I had not visited them, because they are in Kanagawa (not counting one inside the gates at a train station; update: not true, as they are outside the gates). The tart was very good. Actually they were within a few kilometers of where I went last week (P. Partage) and where I plan to go next week (P. Etienne), so the challenge will be to come up with a good route, when the time comes.