Lenôtre, Plaisir

Was busy Sunday and most of Monday, but Monday afternoon went to Jean-Paul Hévin, since the cake I wanted from Sadaharu Aoki was sold out at Marunouchi and I needed someplace for two to test. We got hot Chocolate (Chocolat Chaud Mangue and Viennois), which is relatively cheap there, and two macarons, Frambois'in (not sure what the "'in" concatenates from) and Mésange. The first hot chocolate is mango, obvious, and wasn't anything special, though good of course, and the second is whipped cream, which also was nothing special but good. I liked the Macaron Mésange most. This is passion fruit and matcha and was excellent. The Frambois'in was raspberry and Venezuelan chocolate and was good but not exciting.

I hadn't had cake Sunday and I was already at Yuuraku-cho, so I got a third cake from Lenôtre, Plaisir, which seems like a Saint-Marc from the components (milk chocolate and vanilla mousse), but isn't. For running, I ran down to Akasaka again (like Saturday morning) and tried to do the revised Akasaka loop that split off all the stuff south of Roppongi-Doori, and a little on the Akasaka 2 side and I was successful, but realized afterward that I didn't like that the route doubled back where it could have gone around the block, so it was a failure of route making. I finish practicing Akasaka 4, doing it counterclockwise, and did the new Akasaka 3 east loop clockwise, so I had to be satisfied with that.

Plaisir is nice and well made, but definitely not a Saint-Marc and ultimately, though it's definitely good, I can't rate it higher, as it's just not that exciting. Still, with two great cakes before this, Lenôtre easily is a top the quite fine category and is challenging the quite exceptional one, so I'll be back there again early next week, regardless. Also, I need to find another great cake, quick, but I should get to that later as I catch up with this week.

Rain and workout inside with La Noboutique: Viennois (?)

Today I was feeling tired and there was a lightning caution (although that was true for most of the country), so I stayed in and exercised. Since Friday is harder to get cake, I talked myself into getting cake anyway, from Isetan. They are being visited by La Noboutique, from which I bought Viennois (actually, only labeled phonetically, ヴィエノワ, so I'm guessing) for 526 yen. It looks like chocolate, but I knew it had hazelnut. Actually, about two thirds is hazelnut cake, with a base of cake making up half and an additional cylindrical piece in the walnut flavored (not that I could tell) whipped cream on top. The chocolate is just a coating, and its not gelatinous, so they have my respect. The effect is more like a torte and it was good, so I want to go there.