L'Avenue: Vivienne, Mode, and L'orangerie

Vivienne, by L'Avenue

Saturday, I went to the correct shop, and I didn't go alone, so it was three cakes for two people. We got the Vivienne, Mode, L'orangerie. These were all a huge improvement on Friday's cake, so I was satisfied.

L'orangerie, by L'Avenue

I think the better ones were Mode and L'orangerie, so I'm recording those as semi-excellent, but the Vivienne was definitely good. For Kobe, this makes this shop of special note, though my resurvey has not extended far yet.

Mode, by L'Avenue

L'Avenue (Kobe): Cache Cache, Lady, and Segur

Only my third post of Kobe cake here. I really don't visit enough, I know. This time I got to what I think of as the best shop, although I was not as strongly impressed this time, so we'll see. Still, what a great webpage: they show all the individual cakes with both the Japanese and Western (mostly French) names with really nice pictures.

The best cake, I thought, was the Cache Cache, which is actually a series of cakes around the Kobe area, Kobe Originals, where they all try to create something original on the theme, in this case hiding various ingredients. This has a pistachio tart base (a pretty strong one) with fig in it, but on top it is more like a mont-blanc, so chestnut, vanilla cream and accented with white chocolate. It seemed excellent (all evaluations based on half a piece).

Lady was actually the first one I had, which is mascarpone (cheese) mousse over strawberry flavored center and a little pistachio biscuit. It was good but not very interesting to me, since I'm not that interested in strawberry flavor and in general it is quite mild.



The last one, called Segur, was Bretagne salt caramel in a milk chocolate tart. It was definitely good and met my sweet tooth. If I judged more on appearance, then perhaps I would rate it better but I really don't cake what cakes look like beyond what it reflects about the construction. Fortunately, my foot had finally stopped hurting (I hadn't been running through Sunday, but still did more walking than I would just commuting to work).