à tes souhaits! Pistache d'Abricot

Monday, which is a national holiday, I ran out to à tes souhaits! with a couple back-ups in mind further out from there in case they were closed or my patience was insufficient. The person in front of me counted 21 people in front of her when she called her partner. That's about typical for this shop on a weekend (it's reasonably accessible on a weekday). They were well staffed, so the line moved a little faster than I expected, but I was glad that I had an extra jacket, long pants, and hat in my bag for the outside part of the wait (if felt nicely warm at first when I first entered, but the door is open, so not so much once I got used to it), though the person several spots ahead who also looked like he ran there was not visibly suffering without doing so. I limited myself to only a few pictures of sites that could potentially be on future neighborhood course additions.

Selection was pretty good. I went for Pistache d'Abricot, which looked like something I would like. The apricot is a layer on top, under which is pistachio mousse (with pistachio cream on top), but under that there are nutty layers, including feuillantine praliné, which I don't usually associate with a fruity cake but I do associate with modern traditional fancy cake, so my regard for them has improved. This was definitely excellent cake. I suppose the distance was about 14 km, including about 1 km to and from stations coming back (the cake was fine, though maybe only because the mousse proportion was low).

This shop will make the cut when the quite good shops gets trimmed down to half their current size (hopefully), once I get all the current group up to 3 cakes each, which will make the designation more significant. Right now this category is just the not definitely below average group, though that's average among the places that I'm will to visit. For example, there was a much smaller patisserie 300 meters away that didn't seem to be having trouble with lines.

In the late afternoon, I went out again and completed verifying my memory of the Jinguumae central loop and then did clockwise on the new version of the Jinguumae northwest loop (probably wasn't necessary to change it, but it was nice to get some of it off Takeshita street, which is difficult to do even a slow walk due to crowds and finished off the linked Jinguumae central west loop. My plan is to finish off the Jinguumae northwest loop next, and then continue down to the revised Jinguumae--Jinnan and Jinnan loops (as well as try to get pie). The other neighborhood memory-check run will be in out toward Aoyama, where I didn't manage to get to Viking F (bakery) last week, but it requires that I avoid overtime work. Other plans for the week will depend on what the cake shops put out to replace cakes retiring Jan 15.

à tes souhaits!: Grenoble

Did a second visit of à tes souhaits! by bicycle, trying to bring up all the Quite Excellent shops to two fresh cakes. I had the afternoon off, but first I had to go buy a new bike pump that took French valves and had a pressure gage and hen I did really understand how to use it (it's super simple, but I'm simpler). Eventually I got it and then got to the shop at probably around 3 pm. à tes souhaits! is the most crowded place that I know (and they've opened up a separate shop next door for ice cream and I forget what else), which is why I prioritize getting there on a weekday. I don't know why other than there not being much else out there and they appearing at the top or near on Tabelog, the main restaurant rating system.

There are two tables out from and there was a window when one became open (not that surprising, as people usually come for take-out), so I snagged it and was able to eat my cake. The cake is called Grenoble and is walnut and caramel. The walnut is highly sugary, not to the point that it was not definitely good but too much that ultimately I decided that it depended too much on that for flavor, so I could not really say that it was excellent. Maybe it would done better if I had tea and it had chilled a while first (even straight from the shop, I often find cake not as chilled as I would like, so this may just be partially my preference. The end result is that this shop stays in the Quite Good category, so it will be a couple years before I get back there (but it seems likely that they'll still be there).

Full disclosure, in the late afternoon I ran a few kilometers to P. Shima to correct the name of their cake from Tuesday. I was a little tired from cycling, so that was only 9 km/h. I'll see about getting to the last one-cake Quite Good shop (which just means that the one cake was excellent).

à tes souhaits!: Harmonie d'Orange

Decided that, for a midweek half-holiday, à tes souhaits! was a good choice, since they are always so crowded on the weekend and they close too early for a normal weekday visit. My experience a few years ago was that they were not particularly special, but the same could be said for some shops I now list as excellent. Since the temperature was above 30 degC, I cycled rather than ran. It's a little over 12 km each way, but fairly straightforward, or would have been if I had been prepared to bypass one intersection (on foot, I'd take the sidewalk against traffic, but I was on the other side on the road and it was too late).

Unfortunately, the photo of the cake did not turn out, so all I have is the shop from the other side of the street. The cake was a standard rectangular petite individual, with chocolate mousse above and chocolate biscuit below as the main layers. On top of the mousse, was a line of whipped cream with some orange compote sprinkled on and between the layers was some sort of greenish citrus with maybe orange cream or something above that. It was definitely good, and while not that out of the ordinary, it was certainly the kind of cake I approve of, so I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt and say it was excellent, which means that this shop seems to be quite good. I've got a lot excellent places that need one more cake before it, but I should get back there before too long (pr
obably this year).