Jean-Paul Hévin: 4 cakes

Was at Ginza Mitsukoshi last Thursday (I think; I got confused by the long weekend) evening and went for cake for two people with me not choosing (just I pointed out what was new). We got 4 cakes that just became available in the last couple weeks, Passion, which is a regular cake that was new to me this month, Éclair Chocolat, which is only available on weekends, and two verrine, Verrine Chocolat Apricot and Verrine Chocolat Trente. Only the latter (in honor of the 30th anniversary) is new to me, so I'll mention that it is bay leaf scented Peruvian cacao mousse and strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry gelatin.

I thought both verrines were excellent, which is an upgrade for the first one and decided that they were cake enough to count (versus pudding with a little cake). The eclair was also excellent, as previously, but I thought that the Passion was actually great this time (maybe due to a lighter temperature or just chocolate intoxication), also an improvement over last time, though an average of semi-great is not enough to get it into cake-offs yet



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Jean-Paul Hévin: Passion

I don't remember whether I got this at Ginza Mitsukoshi (which would imply running) or Isetan, but this was the first day for this new cake, which is different from their previous passion fruit cake, which has been out of the line-up for a while and I'm assuming from this is going to remain out. It's their standard mousse layer chocolate, this time with ganache flavored with rum and a crunchy top (though I'm not sure of what, besides probably sugar). This was excellent, but my impression was that it did not stand out among their cakes. However, I had half of a piece more recently and thought it was great, so my current evaluation is semi-great, which at least means that I'll get back to it before reviewing just excellent cakes, though reviewing great cakes is keeping me busy enough.

Ginza jog to Frédéric Cassel at Mitsukoshi: Passion (updated)

Still feeling a little off, although the rainy weather might be related. Was able to jog to Ginza and back, though. It's probably not the first time I've bought from Frédéric Cassel, since I've been at Ginza Mitsukoshi and wanted cake in the past and there aren't so many option (but they do have a Jean-Paul Hévin, so no problem always going there). It's been years, though. Their visit to Shinjuku Isetan drew my attention, so I'm finally getting around to visiting them.

I got the Passion, which is passion fruit baked cheese cake layer, and a rare cheese cake layer, and a little raspberry coulis in between. The weirdest part about it is that there are two crusts at the bottom. The top one seems to be a passion fruit flavored biscuit. It was 756 yen, which is steep, but great, and no geese died to make it, as far as I know, so good job Fred. I'll need to get back there, although the only thing else that they had near closing time was the lemon tart, which would be okay, but not usually my first choice.