Cake-off: Viron's Baba over Pièce Montée's Mont-Blanc

There was and was not a lot of running for this cake-off, in poor weather. Friday night, I ran to Pièce Montée's and got one of the last Mont-Blanc. Weird thing this time, they asked me to pay first, which is totally normal, but by coming around the counter and (telling me) just holding out their hand for the money. Japanese use trays to pass money, so I was expecting her to bring a money tray like in JPH (though it is a pretty unstable to carry money). I visited FC (again) on the way back and confirmed their two new cakes this month. They're both petit version of their main Christmas cakes, one chocolate with some whipped cream and one strawberry of various forms, including mixed with (coating) chocolate for the outside. They might great, but I've got a lot of other shops to visit, so I'll wait until I'm in more need or they have something that looks like it could become a regular thing. I walked my cake back, though at a good pace. This shop opens and closes late, so getting cake at night for the next day is the only way to go (plus, limited selection on Saturday's and closed Sundays).

Saturday, I woke up with balance problems (still feel a little odd) that are unnoticeable when I exercise. I assume something broke off and worked its way to the wrong part of my ear. If it's bad again tomorrow I'll have to look up what one does about that (since I've seen this on a health shop, I assume I also saw some home exercise, but I can't remember what it is). Anyway, I let myself sleep in longer, so Viron was almost open by the time I left the house, and I went to the bulk grocery out that way to stock up on nuts and walked from there with an umbrella. Still no problem getting the Baba. Still no new (non-coffee flavored) cakes. Last year they had some special Christmas cakes and in their case I should indulge, since I'm just getting more behind on them, due to lack of new cakes.

The Baba and the Mont-Blanc are both standards in general. Viron's is the only one I'm calling great, and it still satisfied me with its strong taste from a generous amount of rum, and nice volume overall. The Mont-Blanc is the opposite, being rather small and being pretty plain, but not in a bad way at all. It's definitely something that, after eating, I could eat another one, which is one sign of greatness. But I liked the Baba better, so it wins. Also, the Mont-Blanc it's not really special in it's class, so while its a good enough representation of that class, I've got enough other one's, including ones that I would miss, that I can't say it's great. That's two times in a row, so it gets demoted to semi-great. Either way, it's a quite fine shop, though I've had enough of their small collection that it will probably be a long time before I get back there, if ever.

  

Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait over Pièce Montée's Mont-Blanc

Friday night, I went to Pièce Montée's Mont-Blanc for Saturday, once they confirmed that Saturday they wouldn't be selling it. They open late, so that's still within 24 hours of them putting it on display, which seems reasonable. I mostly carefully walked it back (they do not take it down, just limit its movement by a partition and icepack). My snack instead came from the Marusho, in the form of a Plecia Basque Cheesecake, which was definitely good, unlike my last coffee shop cheesecake.

Saturday, I woke much to early, so I same neighborhood course I mentioned previously, but found another little shop next to Shinanomachi selling little traditional cakes, so the map needed to be revised (the shop is Bunmeidou, and I got their Honey Castella Rolls, which was definitely good, as packaged cakes go).

That being the case, I decided that I should add the various Soga Gakkai buildings, the same as I would if they were religious buildings of other groups, even though this area is their central complex. The streets are public, so it's not really a campus or like a temple grounds, where many building might be assembled. I took a few pictures of obvious candidates for revising the map and then headed to Isetan, where I arrived just before opening and easily got my Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait for a cake-off between two zero-for-one cakes.

Unfortunately, I didn't move the mont-blanc from the chiller before serving (probably should have moved it to the regular part of refrigerator an hour before eating), so it was maybe too firm for the whipped cream to express itself. I just wasn't feeling the need for this to be on the great list, so Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait, which I still think deserves to be on the list easily won. The mont-blanc will get another chance this year, and I'll try to remember to be more careful about the temperature, as appropriate for a cake that depends on whipped cream.

When I was out again, confirmed more Soka Gakkai buildings, I stopped at their souvenir shop, Hakubun Eikōdō, and got a little Shinanomachi Agemochi (fried rice cake), which was good in the standard way.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Duja Pistache over Pièce Montée's Mont-blanc

Changed my plan and did this weekend's cake-off early, Thursday afternoon. After a half-lunch, I ran to Pièce Montée in Ginza and got their Mont-blanc. They let it just slide around in the box, so I planned to take the train back and do a bigger run later. After stopping at Origines Cacao to confirm the ingredients of their Saint-Michel, I went to Jean-Paul Hévin and got their Duja Pistache, which is not seasonal but I'm not sure how long it will stick around, so I'm glad I didn't wait too long to get the first-round cake-off done. I'm more worried about availability of a cake for the next cake-off, but it requires a full day free, which I'm not going to have this weekend. I also noted that Lenôtre still has their Feuille d'Automne, along with a red version, so the second cake is definitely available, and the backup is this week's cake-off. (The Concerto is gone from Lenôtre, but I wasn't expecting to getting around it its third round this year.) I also swung by Rire Ginza, a "Sweet/Cafe Salon", just to confirm that I could find it, but I didn't climb the stairs in my jogging stuff with my cakes just to peek inside. I did feel free to go inside Sadaharu Aoki in Marunouchi, hoping to find a Croissant Chocolat, but they just had the Croissant Matcha (still an excellent choice), so I'll have to keep looking. I was hoping to try the Tokyo Midtown location Saturday morning (I'll have enough time for that), but it looks like I might get grounded by rain.

Neither Jean-Paul Hévin's Duja Pistache or Pièce Montée's Mont-blanc disappointed me, but neither stood out dramatically from the other. My preference for chocolate, though, led me to the Duja Pistache in the end, though the Mont-blanc remains outstanding as a simple Mont-blanc, why I'm still not sure.

The run was a revised Akasaka--Roppongi loop (fun running from home and back), though it ended up starting at 20:00, due to a nap, video chat, and indoor workout with weights. This time is was revised due to shown picture, which my old course passed behind. Now if only Google maps hadn't stopping letting me upload pictures, I could add it to the map.

Pièce Montée, Fromage

Did another run to Ginza, this time for a 6th new cake from Pièce Montée. Went a slightly long way and finished confirming the new Akasaka 3 loop. For the cake, which I ran home, I choose their simplest, the Fromage. It's small, but really enough. A good cake, but not groundbreaking. Looks like if I'm going to get any more new cakes from them, they're going to have to first win a cake-off. I plan to give them their first chance this week. If they win, I'll try one of the more elaborate cakes again next.

Pièce Montée: Fromage Cru

Monday, I ran some revised neighborhood loops, only semi-successfully. The Minami-Aoyama east loop was successful clockwise and the Minami-Motomachi--Moto-Akasaka loop was successful counterclockwise, only I decided to change it on the fly, so now I need to run it clockwise again. Also, since now I'm allowing links through subway access tunnels, I should had a Kita-Aoyama east loop (which has at least part of the park-like part of Meiji-Jinguu Gaien, as well as a children's park on the public housing side, but it was the return of Starbucks that really triggered my considering it (there is also a Japanese confectionery, which I may or may not included, depending my next look in the shop when it's open). So I'm adding nearby loops I need to do faster than I can catch up back to expanding outward. No cake that day, but I was feeling like pizza and tried some place that I won't bother to name. Not the worst, but probably never need to go back.

Tuesday was an indoor workout day, so I just used a bicycle to go to
Pièce Montée to get a 5th cake, to try to resolve the boundary between exceptional and quite fine shops (it's the shops with just one great cake that are the problem). Since I've had luck with them lately (and the selection is pretty small), I went with Fromage Cru. Workout went fine, as the did the cake. I'm rating this as definitely good: very nice balance of raspberry (there's filling) and cheesecake, but simple, with a tart base. Note sure that I got the "feather" and the raspberry back in the correct locations after I got it home, but seems somewhat reasonable.

Pièce Montée, Thé Vert

No running today. Since I planned (and did) my indoor workout, I went to Ginza by bicycle and visited Pièce Montée for a fourth cake. I decided to be more adventurous and get Thé Vert, which is working hard to be Japanese. Besides the green tea, it has a couple beans, and lots of sesame (seems like). The top fell off the base tart, but I could put it back, though the very top might have originally been better centered. Anyway, it was definitely good and had similar texture and sweetness to other cakes. Interesting enough to recommend but not really my thing.

This shop is now tied for top of the quite fine shops and could replace one of shops at the bottom of the exceptional list, but not today.

Pièce Montée, Mont-Blanc

Getting to the last of the quite fine shops with only two cakes, I ran to Pièce Montée in Ginza. The selection is small, maybe only the few cakes shown online. I went with the Mont-Blanc. It's is small and not cheap, but that is what I expect for the neighborhood (though it's not that far to the nearest Mr. Donut, which is under an overpass on the Ginza border). I toured shops in Marunouchi and did not find anything I needed to get back to. Tomorrow I expect to visit Mitsukoshi, so I left that and Ginza 6 for then.

At more than an hour after starting, I was in Hibiya Park, having doubled back from Shin-Marunouchi Building rather than completing the loop around the imperial grounds. I was hungry so I need to decide whether I would try to eat cake outside, always difficult, to just have energy cookies. I went for the cake and was glad I did. First of all, it was loose in the box, so I don't know kind of shape it would have been if I had run it home, though it was going good for about 30 minutes of walking, mostly in tunnels. The chestnut paste was well sprinkled with sugar, so it wasn't too bitter for me, but the cream inside was also not just plain cream. Even in the dark, it was obviously brown. There wasn't really a chocolate taste, at least combined with the chestnut, so maybe it was also flavored with chestnuts. I'll ask next time I go. The base was meringue, but I just had to eat that last by itself. I'll be going back because I decided that, simple as it was, it was perfect as itself, so great cake. Terrible picture, so I think I'll keep it off Twitter.

Left hip started hurting again after about 10 km. Hope that's not going to stay a thing.

As I review, I miscounted before and I have 50 quite fine shops, compared to a target of 32, which means 18 of them are actually just fine, leaving only 46 shops for the current fine shop list, which is up to 111. That's a probably for a different year, though if I get enough new shops that are reasonably good, I could start shifting those down to just other visited shops.

Pièce Montée: Thevert

The rain held off mostly, so I could run today. I did 4 km running total at 7 to 8 min/km alternating  2 min running, 1 min walking again, which I'll keep doing through next Tuesday, as my running week. I was a little worried because pain from a little pain from sitting at, but it was okay running (though it generally is, whereas the next day might bring other news). Now, it's my left arm that's the problem. I probably shouldn't be typing with it, but it's not hard to rest it enough.

I finally got back to Pièce Montée, but didn't get a good picture of the cake. It's a long way walking home, so I ate in the park and my lighting was not as good as last time (I started from the other end of the park), but I had already wrecked the box. It's worth seeing though, so the photo is taken from their blog. It's Thevert (for Thé Vert, green tea). I think the "cup" and lid are chocolate, although the sesame seeds mask it, or maybe it is sesame seeds and nuts dilute, since it looks more like nuts than sesame in the picture . There is quite sweet green tea mousse inside, although the green tea flavor is hard to taste. I'm not sure if the beans are real, since there was no bean texture, so maybe just brown mousse. This is a very interesting and good cake, so I don't regret it, but as a second cake and for 1000 yen, I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, so I'm calling it just "good" and taking them off the list of potentially excellent shops, which still has about 35 shops in it, about half only visited a couple time and half bumped down from potentially "great". At some point, I'll sort out the semi-great from just excellent ones, but I'd like more cakes from some of them first. In the meantime, it's been too long since I've had really great cake, so I'll see whether I can get to Pierre Hermé tomorrow night after my other errands. I'll be unusually busy, but there's always Saturday (which I haven't decided where to go yet, although I always need to get back to Paris S'éveille and I'm not up to running that far or fast enough on a weekday or have high enough need to use the bike).

http://piecemontee-blog-new.seesaa.net/upload/detail/image/DSC_0607ver2-thumbnail2.jpg.html

Run to Shinbashi and Piece Montée: Batan Chocolat

I ran to Shinbashi, but that was overshooting to go to Ginza, where Pièce Montée is, so I had to reorient myself. Once there, I got the Baton Chocolat for 800 yen, which is nuts and raisins in a very dense chocolate cake. There are chocolate pieces and chocolate cream on top, although you're going to need more delicate handling than I managed to get them off without making a mess. It was very good, I think, but I was not happy that they just gave me a box, although (i) I didn't try asking for a bag and (ii) it was so windy that a bag would not have been that useful. Still, I felt that the service was not great. I ended up walking back to Hibiya Park and then just eating it there, so no picture. It was good, but messy under the conditions and left me thirsty and thinking again about making brownies next. Ultimately, I can't get too interested in there and no one has recommended them, so it's going down as visited by not of particular interest. I don't need everything from everywhere, and they are not particularly convenient even compared to Dalloyau, which is also in Ginza.

It was in fact, too cold for how I was dressed and the wind, although not fatally. Since today was the peak daytime temperature, I won't try again to go without a jacket, even if I get sweaty. No running tomorrow since rain is forecast, I need to do my indoor workout, and I need to stay home for a postal delivery. Hope to get something from Isetan Thursday, maybe a shop I haven't blogged yet, then do laps, either try for higher speed laps at Meiji Gingu Gaien, or a couple laps around Akasaka. Then Friday maybe back to Amitié, since I liked the first cake and they were reasonable. I haven't had much luck with places I've chosen from just seeing, but I still might try Louange Tokyo soon, which does not quite fall in the category since I discovered them online and they are maybe too new to have gotten a recommendation from Isetan or Joshi+, which are my two sources.