Cake-off: Paris S'éveille's Le Suprême over Jean-Paul Hévin's Duja Pistache

Catching up on cake-offs, I did another one to match something with Duja Pistache (obtained the night before) from Jean-Paul Hévin, following the strategy of working on the cakes from the top shop that might disappear before I'm ready. I tried Rue de Passy first, but the citrus pralin mille-feuille has moved on, so I continued down to Paris S'éveille. Wasn't sure I was going to make it, as just 10 days without running had me out of shape, in that my knee and/or hip hurt so bad that my whole leg was going numb. Got through it though. Had the same problem the next day and found that best answer was squats, which I haven't been doing lately. PS is in pandemic mode, with the café space closed and limiting people inside. Got the Le Suprême, which lost last time I think, when I wasn't feeling what was so great about blackberry chocolate mousse. This time I was comparing it to a chocolate pistachio layer cake. Generally nuts are a better bet with me than fruit, but I was feeling the advantage of the fruit complementing the chocolate over a relatively fruity nut this time and didn't mind the limited texture of a mousse cake (complemented for texture by chocolate sheet). This is a fourth round, where both had been held back last year for already having two losses, but Le Suprême pulls a second win, so it's claimed middle territory among the great cakes.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Longchamp Praliné over Paris S'éveille's Le Suprême

Sunday, I fit in some running and cake. In the morning to early afternoon, I ran down to Jiyuugaoka and got Le Suprême from Paris S'éveille's for a third-round cake for the runner-up bracket (the one and one shops after two rounds). Stopped off on the way back to get the special-time Jean-Paul Hévin's Longchamp Praliné, which was my main focus, though I still have another month before it's scheduled to be replaced. While at Paris S'éveille's, I got a snack to last me until lunch, their Croissant Orange, as a fresh viennoiserie. It was great, as I remembered. Some time I need to do a match up with the great croissant from Sadaharu Aoki, since these may be the only two great croissants I know of.

Jean-Paul Hévin's Longchamp Praliné easily won, as it is decadent combination of chocolate coating, praliné, and meringue. I'm having my doubts about needing to sample Le Suprême, though I'll get a fourth round at least. The flavor combination of blueberry and chocolate is definitely nice and not something I have other exams of, but it's just a mousse cake with some glazing and chocolate that isn't that well integrated into the cake (though I guess it protects it from sticking to the box, and it was somewhat successful, though it doesn't stick to cake well either). Still, I enjoyed both cakes, so no disappointment.

In the evening, I went down and did the Jinguumae 5&6 loop clockwise. Note that there is illumination up on Omotesandou-douri Ave., so they close the pedestrian footbridges for safety (otherwise, people would crowd up there, and they aren't that wide or seem to be that rugged) and station cops at the crosswalks to keep people from standing too long in the street taking pictures, which I didn't try to do.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Violette over Paris S'éveille's Le Suprême

Did a run over to my new Hatsudai-Yoyogi-Tomogaya loop to find the kilometer marks that I had set for myself and take a few pictures where I hadn't yet, including a temple that I knew about but hadn't followed the path back to. Unfortunately, I just found another temple that should have been on the route, which changes it. On the plus side, the recalculation seemed to indicate that I had messed up the involved measurement, since the distance should have gotten larger but got smaller. Still, only a 50 meter difference and I haven't actually got the route memorized yet, so plenty of time to shift the kilometer markers. Note sure whether I'm going to be ready for 30 km on the course on Wednesday, which seemed a possibility before.

Started at 7:45 and around 9:15 headed for Paris S'éveille to get Le Suprême. Judging from what I saw, today a big day for nursery school graduation ceremonies.

Note a huge line at Paris S'éveille but they were busy enough, so it took maybe 10 minutes. At Jean-Paul Hévin's at Isetan, the wait was longer. Men are still buying chocolate for White Day, apparently (and there are still special sets). Eventually I got Violette (same as last weekend). I'll admit, this was too much chocolate mousse for one sitting, or maybe just lately in general, though not the first time for that in a cake-off. Next week's planned JPH cake is maybe a little less moussy and the intended opponent (unless another great cake turns up in the next week), is a cheesecake, so it won't be comparison of similars. This time's cakes were vary similar, with the main difference being a change in the fruit providing the accent, cassis (currant) for Violette and blackberry for Le Suprême. I still think that these are both great. Maybe Le Suprême should win for being more different from the crowd, but there's perhaps a reason that cassis is a commonly used flavor, because I felt that it complemented the chocolate better, so I have to give the win to Violette again. Eventually, all the cakes in the top bracket are going to be JPH ones and I'll have to start comparing them to each, but I'll deal with that if and when it happens (I'll be limited to what's in season at the same time, though that's always true).

Cake-off: "Le Suprême" over "Miroir Cassis"

Saturday, I did a two-part run, first up to Aigre-Douce to get Miroir Cassis, that I have an ambiguous "great" report on, so I wanted to resolve that. I had forgotten how poorly their bags fix their boxes, so that it's impossible to keep them level. To make matters worse, they put cool packs both inside and outside the box, both on the back, so it would take a pretty well fitted bag to keep it from flipping over. Needless to say, it was pretty banged up from trip home, which was longer than necessary. Next time (I'm planning to go back Thursday), I'm taking a route that sticks to main (straight and relatively level) and bring a good back that I can repack in, as needed. This was about 11 km, with slightly more of that 10 km/h versus 9 km/h.

The second run was to Paris S'éveille for Le Suprême. This has blueberry and chocolate, so I wasn't sure what to match it with anyway, which was why I paired it up with Miroir Cassis, which is at least fruit. This is a mousse cake, though, and they advised me to get it home within 1 hour, which running wasn't going to accomplish to I used the train. At least I saved myself the cost of the sports drink that I would have needed to run back, though the front chocolate sheet stuck to the box and broke when I pried it loose. I varied my running route just because I knew I would cycle the next day and most of my route would otherwise be the same as Thurday's, so that added about another kilometer, to make it about 12 km at 10 km/h.

It was a pretty lopsided contest. My original estimation that Miroir Cassis was not great, and I'm not sure that it even qualifies as excellent, though the texture is good, I appreciate the mini macarons, and the fruit taste is nice. But Le Suprême is rich and blue berries provides an uncommon accent. So, in recognition, I also need to get back to Paris S'éveille.

I should also mention that Friday I tried Henri le Roux's Noir Signature tablette bar/tablet, which was definitely excellent, though I'm comparing to months-old imported chocolate from the grocery. I haven't had other chocolatier tablette chocolate for quite awhile.

Sunday afternoon run: Rue de Passy and S'éveile

In running, I was looking for a better Marjolaine, so weaved a little and stopped in a few places. I looked in at Takagi at Gaienmae, then Chez Lui (which is just somewhere I go past frequently and doesn't look particularly promising, although it might be fine for what it has) in Shibuya, then Cacahouete just inside Meguro-ku, by Sourire again, just because that was the best route, a pop in at Matterhorn by Gakugei University/College Station (where I wouldn't expect to see a fancy cake), to Rue de Passy a couple blocks away, where I got the Opera Pistache which is related, in being nutty, and closely related to Opera Praline, which is the second recipe in the same book, although it a recipe that is much more complicated and so I would not imagine trying it.

I'll call this a great cake (and it was not particularly expensive) and say that I should consider whether this is a great shop. Unfortunately, it closes 30 minutes earlier and is one station farther away than Sourire, so I don't think I can easily manage a weekday run there unless I learn to be faster.

I continued on to Jiyuugaoka and stopped in at the Dalloyau, just in case, on the way to m.koide, which I decided to downgrade from a great shop just because the selection is pretty small, although they were open on a Sunday this time.

That leads to my actual second cake, which was Le Suprême from (Paris) S'éveille, for 620 yen. This was blackberry and chocolate mousse, so I recommend eating it in the shop, although I managed to get it to a park with minimal melting despite that it was not well packed. Still, great cake, even with the limitation of being mostly mousse. There are still lots of cakes I need to sample from there (for blogging: I've probably had this cake before).
Later, I had some of the chestnut cake below (1200 yen from Aoki). It's fine. Sorry, but I don't know what it's called. It might be exclusive to Shinjuku Isetan.