La Base Secrète du GAMIN: Marbré W Fromage

Still at the beginning of working through under-visited shops from my bloated quite good list. I'm skipping a couple A's for logistic reasons and ran to (La) Base Secrète du GAMIN, which seems farther than it is because of the slow down going through Shibuya station. I'd try running further north, in front of NHK Studio Park next time, but that's not looking necessary. Round trip is 14 to 15 km.

Got there several minutes before closing on the day before their rest day and the person ahead of be bought 4 pieces, so not a big selection, which is true every time I go there. This time I went with Marbré W Fromage, which is a baked cheesecake base with a marbled cheese souffle on top. Considered coming back by train, but it requires a line transfer and isn't that direct, so I was able to convince myself that there was not much benefit, plus I could use some more exercise after the heavy eating last weekend. I had a windbreaker in my backpack that I didn't get out, but I definitely was feeling that I was activating brown fat cells on the way back.

My major complaint is that this cake was put in the box with nothing to keep it in its place, so it was just rolling around in there. On the other hand, it's not delicate at all and was fine (it probably didn't roll around so much as settle in the corner and shift a little bit). It's a nice cake: nothing special but I didn't feel disappointed in it. Definitely good. When this shop category get's revised, it will probably get moved to the good group, but eventually that bloated group will get revised and it will remain in a definitely good group, I expect, though I'm a long way from needing to go through the good shops to see whether I overlooked something deserving more attention.

The plan for tomorrow is to visit the slightly nearer Ueno counter of a shop that otherwise is definitely farther (and open later, so I might end up there anyway, if I failed to find anything new in Marui Dept. Store.

Sweet Satsuki: Satsuki

Sweet Satsuki: Satsuki

Had the afternoon free, so I took a long run. First, I went down to Sweet Satsuki in Himonya, Meguro-ku, which is not so far off my usual route to Jiyugaoka and got their Satsuki (~500 yen). It's a tiny shop with only a few fresh cakes. The cake was nice enough, completely competent, if nothing particular exciting: good, but not something to set them apart. It's a little neighborhood shop in the middle of a residential neighborhood, so it's probably hard for them to be much more. That part of the run was 9 km/h for 9 km, which is not bad given that my hips hurt from the beginning due to falling over backwards Sunday. Both my hips and my neck (from trying unsuccessfully to keep me from wacking the back of my head on the asphalt) are much better for the run.

La Base Secrète du GAMIN: Croissant

I went way further south than I needed to (by more or less exactly the route that I'll need to do for maybe the next new shop, which is further south) before turning to Jiyugaoka to check for new or sought after great cakes, though they were down two from last time: I only found 1 total. I went up to Sakarushinmachi for the same reason and still did not find the one cake I'm looking for there. From there, I linked up to the green path that runs near La Base Secrète du GAMIN, where I got a Croissant for 280 yen that was excellent, even though it was the mostly bread-like kind with just a couple millimeters of pastry outside.

Due to just the way the lights were, I ending up coming back north along Yamanote for much of the run, after avoiding major roads. At least Yamanote allows a pretty good separation from the road to run, even if it is still pretty noisy. The typhoon  rain did not start until almost exactly 3 km out (there's a long light there, so it's not an unlikely place for anything weather event). Finally, my hat was useful, to keep me dry. From Satsuki to home was about 20 km at 8 km/h, which I blame on heat, distance, and navigation, but it's a fine speed for any run over 20 km total after 3 days off.

La Base Secrète du GAMIN: Mousse of the Woods

Did a long run down to La Base Secrète du GAMIN by way of Yoyogi (I had planned to go through Omotesando, but decided it is too crowded), where I got Mousse of the Woods (森のムース; 550 yen), which is layers of pistachio mousse and praliné, though I'm not sure what, though there are walnuts on top. Also, some crunchy bottom. As before, this poor cake was put in a huge box with nothing to keep it in place but it's internal cohesion, which failed, so it got a little battered. It was a long run, about 9 km each way, 11 km/h out and 10 km/h back.

The cake was good, but definitely not excellent. Also, maybe a little sweet.

La Base Secrète du GAMIN: Winter Mousse au Chocolat

Had enough time to try a longish weekday run to a new shop, La Base Secrète du GAMIN, which is new within the last year but is actually part of a whole GAMIN group of restaurants. This one is down in the north Sengenjaya Station shopping area (you can just see it from the north east-west shopping street if you look diagonally at the right moment). Shortest way is through Shibuya Station, so I looped down the usual way turning past Aoyama Gakuen University (which has a huge mural poster up on their Ekiden running team) to the next crossing sound and came back (although I missed a turn and went a little bit out of my way on the way there). Windy today, and cooled off fast. I might have seen some slow flakes, or maybe just it was they way the streetlight reflected off stray drops in the air. I managed 11 km/h there, but with the huge sack they have me (with a huge box, relative to the cake), only 9 km/h back (over 8 km each way). That's okay. Yesterday I ran without cake, doing about 10 km total but earlier on did eight 200 m speed intervals with 14.0 km/h as the target, but five were actually 15.0+ km/h and one 16.0+ km/h, which is as much as I need of those faster speeds for now, so I'll either need to get onto doing 15 km at 11 km/h at the Moat track, or see whether I can keep up 13 km/h for intervals of 1000 m. Anyway, since I did speed and then slow jogging, that maybe counts as fat-burning training, though the method I heard was two 1000 m (separated by 3 minutes) intervals fast enough to be out of breath.

The cake, in it's huge box and bag, blown horizontal by the wind, did not stay stuck to it's plastic base, but for a mousse cake, it was fairly firm, so it was less battered than it might have been. It's mousse, but maybe with meringue for firmness? It's flavored with Yuzu and orange Bavarian cream, which is where the winter part comes from. The chocolate flavor is not strong for a mousse, but it's there and harmonizes well. It's easy to for me to say that this was definitely good (and better than a doughnut), but only over time did I final decide that I should call it excellent, requiring me to get back there fairly soon (although the selection is not huge, so I don't have to be in that big a hurry, but maybe if varies).

Cake-off: Théatre over Quartette

 Today was a winding, not particularly in control run (in terms of route) from shop to shop, though relatively short for a weekend run.

First I went to Fraoula, where they still did not have the cake I wanted.

Then I stopped by La Base Secrète du GAMIN, to see whether they had actual had cake, which they did have, a little of, so I guess I'll try them as a weekday run some time, if I can find a route I can keep track of (which today's wasn't). I was about 1 hour in, so I tried their Pain au Chocolat (350 yen), which was mille-feuille-type, though still fairly soft in the middle, which I think means less butter and more flour, though I've yet to make this kind of pastry. It was excellent.

Then I managed to get to Rue de Passy without overshooting too much and verified that they had the cake that I would have paired against Fraoula's, so now I know.

Then I went to Origines Cacao, where they still didn't have the first great cake I was looking for of theirs, but I forgot about the second one I was looking for. Still no customers there, but they were announcing reopening in Ginza, in Ginza Six, so I hope that works out.

I then verified that Paris S'éveille had the cake I needed before proceeding to Au Bon Vieux Temps to get Quartette, which required standing in an actual line for the first time there (more than a dozen deep, when I left, but about half that when I arrived, but slow). Mostly, people were buying little baked cakes and cookies of the gift type, which involves conversations about how many of different things they need, in how many boxes or bags, and how long they are fresh for. So it took a while.

Back at Paris S'éveille, the line for cake was not so long, but there was a long line at the register and they to had relatively more people buying gift-type package items (in the area were they usually have little baked cakes, they had packaged macaron sets). There are three possibilities: noon to 1 pm is a terrible time to go, so everywhere that isn't a creepy second-floor shop on the farthest edge of the shopping street is super busy (probably always true); White Day is coming up on Tuesday, so people are buying things, although it wasn't just men buying and they were not buying white chocolate; today is the 6-year anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor disaster, and people are sending gifts to friends and family in that region (I've never heard of such a custom, but that is the topic of the day, and if people were visiting people in a consolatory visit, these would be the kind of gifts that they would need).

Took the train back, because my experience with Quartette (as well as some other Au Bon Vieux Temps cakes) is that it's melty. So today it was about 17.5 km at an average speed of 9 km/h. I'll probably run a little farther Sunday, but not that much, so I'll have a good deal of running budget for Monday thru Friday.

The cake-off this time was easy to decide: Theatre is great but I couldn't see what was special about Quartette, though it was still good. They are both chocolate, although more so Theatre, which also has some crunch, whereas Quartette includes some white chocolate, but is just creamy (supposedly it's mousse, but it's not fluffy). In the past, the richness of Quartette impressed me, but I wasn't feeling it today.