Viron:Tarte au Chocolat

Tried the Daita-... loop again, having just updated it. I failed again counterclockwise, but quite a bit further along than any previous attempt, in Kitazawa 3, which might be half way, though still outbound on the larger southern section that is maybe two-thirds of this route (my next map update might make it easier to quickly clarify that) and at a point that I modified during attempts clockwise, so at one point in time my left turn would have been correct. I wasn't so disappointed, as this is my biggest challenge and I expect I'll be trying it one way or another for a long time, so I'll keep alternating with other routes. I continued on, though not necessarily all running, to Kitazawa 2, to confirm in person the last revisions around there and take photos. 

Extra snacks were only on the way back (besides a couple Calorie Mates cookies). I got a Pain au Chocolat from the Crossroad Bakery inside the laundromat in Uehara along the main east-west road by The University of Tokyo's Komaba Campus, which I think has either mathematics or economics. The outside of this pastry was really well layered, as shown, but the inside had soft white layers, which usually makes me think they are lazy, but actually I can see where this works and I should be appreciating the different textures, since the inside wasn't raw or bread-like: excellent, even if not my ideal.

I decided early on that Viron would be on my way back, since they are one of 4 shops in four different shop categories challenging a shop in the category above them. Before that, I wanted confirm a coffee shop, but that took me through the sleazier parts of Dougenzaka, where I found a tiny park. It's hard to believe this is a real public park, but it's got the signs to prove it, so that destroys two loops, since I think I'll merge the Maruyamachou--Shinsenchou and Dougenzaka loops to fit this in, though I haven't done that yet.

At Viron, I got a Tarte au Chocolat for home and their huge Croissant for eating just outside. The latter was fluffier than I usually like, and yet they seemed to completely nail what they were after and it wasn't bread-like, so I'll have to say that this also was excellent.

On the way home with cake, I stopped by the Flipper's Stand near Harujuku Station and confirmed take-out that qualifies them being on the map, so once again I'm revising the Jinguumae 5&6 loop to add something. At least during the main run I detoured to get the Tomigaya loop clockwise, so I have something achieved, however trivial.

Chocolate tarts are inherently limited, but Viron's seem well made and with good chocolate, so I can rate it as an excellent 17th cake, which leaves them still a challenger for the superb category, though they've got a lot of cake to go to join Origines Cacao there.

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Tarte au Chocolat over Frédéric Cassel's Mont Blanc Jewel

Since rain was forecast as increasing throughout the day and my feet seemed reasonably okay, I went our running south to visit sites on my neighborhood map through Hiroo. Took some pictures, found that one temple had been replaced by a construction project (I should have checked of what), so I deleted that loop from my neighborhood course. At 10 am, after maybe 50 minutes of running, I checked and found that I was farther away from Ginza Mitsukoshi than when I started, but not by a lot. I picked up a few more pictures along the way and got there around 11 am. I was able to get both of my target cakes, Jean-Paul Hévin's Tarte au Chocolat and Frédéric Cassel's Mont Blanc Jewel, for a second-round cake-off. The latter was next in the list for the round and the former will end its one-month run tomorrow. The big discovery, though, was that Ginza Mitsukoshi had the JPH Mille-feuille Chocolat, which I've been looked for and would have been a higher priority. Apparently, it is an exclusive there, so now I'm going to need to run around every month checking every shop for unannounced exclusives, which is inconvenient, but does provide some direction to my running. Wish I had noticed before I had the second-to-last day of the month after I'd already bought one cake.

Ate the cakes at home. Hope that the issue of overlooking a cake did not affect my appreciation, but I has having a hard time sensing the greatness today. Still, definitely excellent cakes and I definitely see the unique good points of both with respect to my great cakes list. I'm giving the round to the tart and marking the mont-blanc down as possibly not great (it will get another round, but if I'm not convinced then, I'll knock it down to semigreat). It's good point is probably that it is the fruitiest mont-blancs on my list. If JPH has a couple new cakes next month, I'll be able to get them, but otherwise I've noticed that it's time for me to try something new of theirs, fresh cake or not, which goes well with my newly recognized need to visit their different shops more regularly (though I'm still only going to buy non-cake things from Isetan and Mitsukoshi, probably).

Cake-off: Jean-Paul Hévin's Tarte au Chocolat over Limevert's Pruneau,

Rainy and a little cold today, but not enough that I needed more than a windbreaker and a wide hat. Wanted to do a cake-off with Jean-Paul Hévin's Tarte au Chocolat today, since it's only available this month and I don't want to wait until the last minute (next weekend, is definitely out), but was not sure what I would be able to match it with, so I had some back-ups in mind. It's 12+ km and I kept it fairly slow, on the low end of 9 km/h, because I might end up at 30+ km if Pruneau was not available at P. Limevert. Their site is fairly detailed and it was not listed, but I could not remember whether their site is reliable. Apparently it isn't, or I'm not at reading information from it, which amounts to the same thing for me, except I could do something about the latter. I was of two minds, apparently: I was anxious approaching the shop, worry that they would not have it, and yet I felt disappointed that I was getting what I wanted (otherwise, it would have been a longer additional run to Les Cacao, with Bubo Barcelona as the next back-up). 

This is the second time that I rated a cake from Limevert great when I had it in the shop but could not finding anything special about it at home. As always, I'm not sure whether it is the change in my condition or the change in the cake's condition (maybe I should have let it warm up more from the refrigerator). Anyway, I'm happy that Tarte au Chocolat was still great. I hope I get it match it against another chocolate tart next year (I've had other great ones, but not ones that I know are available now). If other shops disappoint me, I might be back there, and I'll eat in again. For now, though, they get demoted to Excellent and I am tentatively promoting Bien Etre and 14 Juillet Tokyo to Quite Excellent. It leaves the Excellent group a little under, but the Quite Good group is too tangled up to promote any of them yet and too unimportant (I'm after great cake). Maybe after I finish topping up the local Excellent shops, if too many crash and burn. 

Yeah, finally about to be caught up on the blog. I want to get something from the visiting shop at Isetan tomorrow, but I should skip cake a couple days, for among other reasons, to get a couple non-cake things from JPH for their two cake-off wins.

Jean-Paul Hévin: Tarte au Chocolat

New month, new cakes from my favorite shop, Jean-Paul Hévin. Okay, it's not new, I've had it multiple times before, but it's been more than a couple years, so I haven't posted on it before. I got my cake early and then did the usual monthly tour of the shops in the areas south of Tokyo Station: main Sadaharu Aoki, Marunouchi Jean-Paul Hévin, and Viron on the west side; the Kyobashi Toshi Yoroizuka straight east to the other side along the road between the last two; and then down to Ginza for Frédéric Cassel in the Ginza Mitsukoshi dept. store, Origines Cacao in the new Ginza 6 complex, and the main Dalloyau. No new cakes at the first three, but finally Toshi Yoroizuka has that the cake I've been looking for all year (though I shouldn't surprised, because they told me back in winter or early spring that now the the time it was most likely to appear). Frédéric Cassel already introduced their new stuff, which I saw yesterday, but both Origines Cacao and Dalloyau still did not have any of the several cakes that I'm looking for at them and I don't need any new cakes yet.

Well, one cake found by touring is better than I've done most months. The run was about 11 km (with a little walking) and started out around 10 km/h for the first half, but the fact that I ran 28 km/h the previous day made me slow down later, so the average was around 9 km/h, even without carrying cake.

Today's cake was the standard Tarte au Chocolat, which I declare great for the usual reason that I like chocolate, this was definitely good chocolate, and it's from my favorite shop. Of course, I already suspected that I would have it again, since I have in the past, but I've had many cakes since then. I'll look forward to comparing it to something from another shop to see whether it's really special or just my bias for this shop. (I'll keep my eye open for any announcement of its discontinuation so I can get it in this cycle). Note, this is also their cheapest cake.

Pierre Gagnaire: Tarte au Chocolat

I'm not sure how far I'll run tomorrow, so I'm not sure whether I'll stay within my running budgets (now I'm tracking weekly and biweekly, as well as considering 1 day and 3-day, though I don't exactly have budget's in those cases, just I compare with my recent maximum to date), but I ran tonight at about 10 km/h a little over 9 km to go to Pierre Gagnaire's Pains et Gateaux in the ANA Intercontinental Toyko Hotel, in Akasaka, which I'll just call Pierre Gagnaire, since that's what's at the top of the card and signage.

There was limited selection left, but I got the Tarte au Chocolat (600 yen), which is chocolate on top of caramel. It's somewhat simple but exactly what I like and high quality, so in keeping with the same spirit has my last tart from Dalloyau, I'm going to go ahead and say that this was great and worry about how it compares to similar tarts in the future. This is a fairly convenient location for me for weekdays, so I hope their other cakes are of similar quality, though their line-up is not huge even earlier in the day
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