A. Lecomte, Gateau au Muguet

Since I was nearby and shop hours were about to be shortened (but not closed, unlike the first emergency restriction period), I stopped at Shibuya Scramble to get a second cake from on of the (possible) fine shops. Not that this is really on the second, since the main shop is near an highly frequented area before I starting blogging. This is pretty standard cake from them and attractive to me, so it's probably not my first time I've had it, though it would have been several years ago at least since the previous time.

The name is Gateau au Muguet, from the A. Lecomte counter at Shibuya Scramble Square, and the inside is just pralin cream, which was good, but not so exciting. This cake won't overshadow your tea but it's not interesting enough to keep this shop in the fine category. At least it's good enough to keep from wanting a pause in visiting such shops.

Cake-off: Rue de Passy's Mille-Feuille Praliné Citron over En Vedette's Mont-Blanc

Three cake-offs ago, I went by Rue de Passy for their Mille-Feuille Praliné Citron, which has no problem, and then stopped at the Shibuya Scramble  Square to get the Mont-Blanc from the En Vedette counter. Unfortunately, between the heat and road vibration, the soft middle of the mont-blanc sank. It wasn't that noticeable eating it, but I feel a little bad that I have to choose the Mille-Feuille Praliné Citron. Still, this is only a second-round cake-off, so even with two losses, The Mont-Blanc can still get a third round, just it seems to be available year round, so I don't want to rush it, to keep it available for seasonal opponents. 

En Vedette, Citronné

Saturday, after a morning appointment, I ran down to Shibuya Scramble Square (the building) and visited En Vedette, where I got Citronné. I had had a cake similar to this, so I worried that I was working with an out-of-date list, but I was right to remember that the other one was strawberry, not lemon (I assume from the shape and name). the cake inside is fairly dense and is layered, despite the round appearance on the outside, so not a mousse or a typical lemon tart. In the end, I decided it was a nice change in lemon and rated it excellent. This brings En Vedette up to the level of a quite exceptional shop, so I can finally promote them, which means that Ryoura gets demoted down to just exceptional and they'll have to wait for a cake-off win probably for another visit from me, since I've had a good sample from them.

On the way BE from there, I stopped at Path and got a Croissant, since the Pain au Chocolat was great. The Croissant, however, didn't seem like anything special, though it suffered from not being as freshly baked as the former (though it was still warm).

En Vedette, Cocoanana

After a long week of mostly long work days (except Monday and Friday, which is the reverse of usual), I took advantage of the reopening of Shibuya Scramble Square and its relatively late hours even under pandemic conditions (compared to local department stores), and got a new cake from En Vedette, which is challenging the quite exceptional shop list. This time I got new cake Cocoanana as (maybe, I'm suspecting I'm overlooking one) the 16th cake from there. Note to parse as Coco+Anana, as in coconut and pineapple, though there is also, I think some passion fruit sauce. The coconut aspect was fine, but pineapple cake isn't so exciting. Good, but it's starting to look doubtful that the shop will get a promotion. Still, they have a great cake that's only done one round, so I'd probably get back there soon regardless, if I can get two new great cakes available and the same time.

En Vedette, Fragola

Monday or Tuesday (can't remember which), I took advantage of the fact that, during the week, the food floors kept their regular hours, so I could go after work for another new cake from En Vedette, which is heading for promotion. I've run through most of their line-up, so I went for the shape cake this time, Fragola (which is Italian for strawberry). The outside is white chocolate and the inside is lemon cream and strawberry jelly. The cake provides some texture variation, but I think it needs something more on that front. It's good, but weak for me, maybe because I'm not a big strawberry fan.

En Vedette, Tarte Fraise

Thursday, I made the last visit to bring En Vedette up to enough cakes to promote them to the exceptional list. Previous cakes were good enough that were was no chance of them failing to be promoted. Remaining choices of new cakes were 3 strawberry cakes and a unique-looking mont-blanc. Though I'd like to the try the mont-blanc, I figured one of the strawberry cakes deserved a try, so I went with the Tarte Fraise, which is pistachio. I appreciated strawberry and pistachio in a number of cakes, so it was perhaps the safest choice none the less. And it was definitely excellent. The interesting point is perhaps the tart, which was relatively soft for a tart but more like a butter/nut tart than, for example, a dacquoise. Very nice.

Since it was on the way, I tried to do the Takeshita clump of my neighborhood running course, but failed completely to make the correct turn on the revised Jinguumae northwest loop. In the usual spirit of sour grapes, I found one new site for the map (Sweets Paradise [Harajuku]), which nullified the previous loop. Actually, I'm going to have to split the loop to cover more of Shitatake Street (which is I'd actually like to avoid as much as a possible). Maybe next week when I'm running southwest, I'll try the clump with the two new loops again.

No running Friday, as I was busy, but I swung by the the Sadaharu Aoki counter at Isetan (which Sadaharu Aoki himself of signing, but I didn't buy that high level an item), and got a baked sweet: Cake au Chocolat Pistache. It's small, but excellent, as far as baked sweets go, versus fresh cakes. Hoping they'll have more fresh cakes, but I also wouldn't mind trying the matcha version.

En Vedette, Marron Vanille

Ended up at En Vedette again, after first striking out at Viron for their apple tart, going northwest up to Bien-être for the chance of something new (they do have something maybe new in the lineup---I needed to ask a more detailed question about what was in the chocolate chiboust besides the obvious, since I've had the chocolate raspberry)---but it was sold out) and back down south, past Viron to Shibuya Scramble Square. This time I went for the Marron Vanille, which is chestnut brulée, and lemon cream surrounded by vanilla mousse. It's very soft (except for the chestnut) and fairly mild, and my first reaction was that it was just good but not my kind of thing, but really its a nice change, like the last cake I got from them, and it qualifies as excellent. I'm going through their cakes pretty fast, but I just need one more to promote them and finally have a clear boundary between the quite fine and exceptional shops.

En Vedette, Miel

Every day working later, but Shibuya Scramble Square is open until 21:00, I think, and the nearby Viron is open later, so no problem today. Like yesterday, today was to reward a cake-off winner, or at least that's my excuse for visiting En Vedette slightly early, though this time I ran, but no time for an indoor workout. They still recognized me, and pointed out that I was getting a different cake this time, after getting the same cake just a few days apart. I went with Miel, which means honey, which this had with apricot. Apricot is not a sweet fruit and they did not use as much sweetener maybe as other apricot cakes I had, so this was a little tougher for me to like. Also, it's a dome with gelatin inside. Yet, there were different textures, from the soft meringue on top to a coarse/nutty base biscuit, so I definitely respect this, and like it, so I think excellent isn't not just the prejudice of the moment for this shop. It's not a huge counter, though, and I've had 7 cakes from them now, so getting the next two new ones to catch them up for promotion to exceptional is going to be with limited choices. But that's next week's problem.

En Vedette, Rocher

Tuesday, under the threat of heavy rain and wind (and during medium rain, but not so cold), I went down to Shibuya Scramble Square (the building) to visit the En Vedette counter, since they are one of three candidates among quite fine shops vying for two possible spots in the exceptional group. I didn't try to any a neighborhood clump because of the rain, and because I wanted to do a weights workout when I got back, which I did. I chose the Rocher, though there were other tempting cakes. On the way home, I noticed that they were taking down the pedestrian bridge over Meiji-dori Ave. that crosses in Jinguumae and gets me to all those big loops to the west. I think I can cross further south (though it will probably become more convenient when the construction north of Shibuya Stn. finishes, since now it takes two bridges), but it's going to shift all those west loops down in priority slightly. I'll need to recalculate. I should also mention, though I had noticed Monday, that Nana Gâteaux is now Amiri, though they're still selling cake during the day, actually from earlier than before, just they're a bar restaurant as well.

I really liked the Rocher. Top and bottom is nut-based "biscuit" sandwiching an equal (combined) width of almond and hazelnut flavored butter cream. This is accented by lemon ganache. It's fairly simple, but the text and balance are just right, so I'm going to call it great, which should guarantee them a spot among the exceptional shops, though I'll wait until I've had at least two more cakes from them. It also means this will be one of the cakes in the next cake-off, unless the PH cake I just saw disappears again (it's been almost three years since I last saw it).