Tadashi Yanagi, Mont-Blanc

Working through the quite fine shop list to get them all up to at least 4 cakes, I picked up a Tadashi Yanagi cake, Mont-Blanc, from the counter at Shinjuku Takashimiya, as they are featured there on Mondays. It was good and had a meringue base, I think, both huge improvements over my previous Mont-Blanc. Unfortunately, that probably isn't enough to keep in it the quite fine category, but we'll see.

I note that I'm also going to want to go back there to get cake from Le Jardin Bleu for the same reason. Yanagi actually isn't that far away, even for Setagaya (they used to have a shop on Aoyama-doori Ave., but that's been closed for a while), whereas Le Jardin Bleu is deep in the western suburbs. Not that far but not as close as Yanagi, I note that Noliette doesn't have their counter there any more, so I should have visited them earlier at Takashimaya.

Tadashi Yanagi, La Deux Chocolat

Monday, they told me my arm was not broken (no surprise) and otherwise just gave me drugs and told me to come back to reception if I want more. Actually, I have the same leftover drugs from previous visits for other ailments. Doctors, often not very helpful, and/or sprains, not getting the respect that they should, or so I've heard, so I'm going to try to be careful even once the pain subsides.

In the evening, I went back to Tadashi Yanagi for a third cake, La Deux Chcolat (I'm interpreting). This is a brownie under chocolate mousse with orange (I think; they have dozen of cakes on their website, but not this one). I was not optimistic really. It has structural advantages, but a hard brownie (best as a cake base) is not really a good brownie, so I've yet to have this type of cake work out. It was still good, but that's all. With two excellent cakes and one good, Tadashi Yanagi seems to be quite good, and so three cakes is enough for at least a year.

Tadashi Yanagi: Douceur d'Été

Decided to try for Tadashi Yanagi agian by going on the correct day to Shinjuku Takashimaya. This is a second cake, at least in the current reporting, and a new cake, so definitely not one I had pre-blog: Douceur d'Été ("sweet of the summer", I assume) this time, which is a harmony of lemon cream and milky cream (whatever that is; sounds awful but wasn't) several caramelized hazelnuts inside and decaration including chocolate and almond slices. Lemon cream can be very nice, if fairly intense, which this was and the hazelnuts were a nice surprice. So now I have two shops that I've had two excellent cakes from that deserve a try-out for the excellent shop list, which has openings, not even including a couple that probably should be demoted.

Cycling, I visted Bien-être again and found that the pistachio chiboust that I saw just over a week ago and wanted for a cake-off tomorrow has already evolved into another cake. Like last time, the window for this cake was very small. I'm disappointed, but wanted new cakes from them, so I'll get there again soon anyway. Still need to figure out what the cake-off will be instead.

Tadashi Yanagi: Praliné Croustillant

Friday, due to not feeling totally well the previous two days (maybe a mild cold), no running again, but I had skipped Thursday and needed to look at computers again (still using a loaner, which is very nice, except being tiny, though that was what made it easily portable so that I could borrow it), so I got cake in the Shinjuku Station areas again, again at Takashimaya; I'm nothing if not a creature of habit. This time, I could and did choose from Tadashi Yanagi a new cake (apparently) called Praliné Croustillant, which, besides the totally obvious, has chocolate. This cake has some of my favorite elements, so it should be no surprise that I like it. That and erring on the positive side, I'll say that it was excellent. This brand might be the best choice at Takashimaya, though as a shop, I recommend Au Bon Vieux Temps, just I'm not sure that their best stuff gets to Takashimaya.