Cake-off: Aigre-Douce's Tarte au Caramel Salé over Rue de Passy's Opera Pistache

As a 5th round cake-off of two cakes with three wins each, I first went first to Aigre-Douce, which is always super busy. Now, that means a long line, enough that they have to be careful about their neighbor. Under former conditions, it was crazy crowded inside, so I prefer the current situation, actually. Anyway, they only have one great cake available, at least for the last several years, and I get it every year, Tarte au Caramel Salé. It actually rather soft among caramel tarts, which might be what makes it great. I went by bicycle, which it was strong enough to survive. I took it home first before going out again to Rue de Passy to get, not their only great cake (the shop is a level above A-D), but the one great cake they always have, Opera Pistache. I'll have to keep my eye open for the other, as I missed it for the current round, I think. This is a more solid, dry cake, like torte. I was happy with both cakes and deciding wasn't an immediate thing, but in the end Tarte au Caramel Salé won again, despite the distinction have coming from the shop that's given me the most less than good cakes. But I have to keep trying.

Cake-off: Aigre-Douce's Tarte au Caramel Salé over Atelier Kohta's Classic Chocolat

Two Sunday's ago, I did a cake-off between the next cakes ready for fourth-round, both with two wins to one loss. That said, all their wins were against cakes that got bumped from the greats list. This holds true this time, as expected. While Atelier Kohta's Classic Chocolat is excellent, it doesn't really deserve such repeated attention. Aigre-Douce's Tarte au Caramel Sale I have more confidence in, so it doesn't just win by default but maintains its great position.

Cake-off: Aigre-Douce's Tarte Chocolat Caramel Salé over Jean-Paul Hévin's Matcha

Friday, I finally went inside Binowa Cafe, which is a place I found along my neighborhood running course opened by a "traditional confectionery research company". It's a little rustic as a café and the selection is small and overpriced for take-out, but they advertise canelé, so I figured they deserved to be on my map as a source of pastries/cakes. Their Canelé was excellent, having a nicely crunchy crust around a moist, flavorful, and spongy (versus dry or overly gooey) center. I can say that it was excellent, but again, I'm not sure similar quality couldn't be had much cheaper without a more direct comparison.
The run basically looped around Shibuya station and back back along Gaien, so a long run for a Friday night.

Saturday, for this week's cake-off, I set up a second round for Jean-Paul Hévin's seasonal cake Matcha against Aigre-Douce's Tarte Chocolat Caramel Salé for no other reason than the latter was the next first-round-winning cake on the list, not because they are well matched. Not a long run for a Saturday, but I did enough running during the week that it wouldn't hurt (or maybe would me hurt less) if I gave my feet some rest. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling the Matcha today. Could be that I was eating it in too small of bites to get the full impact (though the cherry was coming through fine) or that the sweetness of the tart interfered with it, but I definitely preferred the tart, which is what matters, and that's fine: it's a great tart. I'll give Matcha another chance next year.

So it looks like I'm going back to Aigre-Douce again tomorrow instead of down to Jiyuugaoka. I wouldn't otherwise get to Aigre-Douce these days because I've had too many disappointing cakes from them, but they vary, so hopefully I'll get lucky tomorrow. They still haven't put Fraicheur Framboise back in the line-up after more than a year of looking.

Cake-off: Tarte au Caramel Sel over Bonheur

I was finally successful in getting the next cake-off going and did not have any trouble running (at least at a 9 km/h pace) despite yesterdays extreme run and 11 km with pauses in the middle felt rather short. Not sure that I'm getting the name correct, but I think Aigre-Douce called it Tarte au Caramel Sel, and I was quite early, so it was not sold out (just, I had to wait for the other early people's orders to get processed). It was also early enough that Bonheur was not actually available when I checked in at Avançons on the way, though they confirmed that it should appear soon ,and it was there as promised on the way back.

Bonheur and Tarte au Caramel Sel

This time I arranged my Aigre-Douce bag better, so that was fixed, but they still put both cool packs against the back of the box, so it was not well balanced; I shifted the outside one to the front. The Bonheur was definitely good, and I approve of the general design, but at this point of my experience, it does not seem that special. It's nice, but very mild. The caramel tart, however, still has strong appeal to me in terms of not being mild: it appears to my sweet tooth and has a strong flavor. So I don't have any trouble calling this cake-off for Aigre-Douce.

Aigre-Douce: Tarte au Caramel Salé and Mille-Feuille

I tried timing a run to a cake shop, pausing the timer when I had to pause for more than a couple seconds for lights (no map checking needed). Apparently took 36 minutes for 6 km there, which seems about right, as I was doing a pretty good pace for me. The run back with cake was similar, although I didn't run the full distance: stopped at a Lawson 100 for groceries and they were a little too heavy for running (or at least, it did not seem great for my shoulders). Timing seemed to motivate me to run hard. I was really tired and slept in the afternoon. I guess I better take it easy tomorrow (although that might just mean that I run slow).

One cake was Tarte au Caramel Salé (salted caramel tart). Besides the caramel, this has some chocolate and was great. The other cake was their mille-feuille. It's just a basic version without any fruit, nuts, or icing, but very good. It was a good choice as a second cake. They were 480 and 560 yen, although I don't know which was which.