Wako Annex, Saint-Honoré Orange & Charmant Fraise

Was busy this weekend, but was out at Ginza Mitsukoshi Saturday later afternoon and was able to skip ahead (alphabetically) and visit the Wako Annex for cake for two, which is one of three holiday/weekend-only two-cake quite fine shops. I really like some saint-honoré, so I went with the Saint-Honoré Orange. The other chosen cake was Charmant Fraise, which is white chocolate and strawberry.

The first is a good quality saint-honoré with some orange compote, maybe, in the center. It seemed like a good idea and well executed, so I'm willing to say that it was excellent. The Charmant Fraise was also good, though less appreciated by me. I was hoping for more flavor from the white chocolate maybe, but its nice if mild strawberry cake with a moussy texture.

30 km, Shibuya H&C, Wako Annex

Another long run today. One result of getting up early yesterday was that I woke up at the same time today, 6:30, although with even less sleep, which I'm going to have to make up sometime. Since it was early, it was clear that the cake shops would be closed anyway, so I was going to need to do two runs to get cake (as my preferred option). First, I went back to Shinjuku Central Park. I did find one marker on the way, so with the other west marker, there is enough information on the markers to tell one all the roads and turns one needs to know how to go from Shinjuku Central Park to the east side of Shinjuku Station, but neither marker gives you enough information to know where to look for the other one, so you still need to know the course ahead of time. Since there still seems to be no start marker (which is going to be a problem again for the other course starting at that point, which I'm thinking of doing next weekend), I modified my map to follow a more reasonable course. I also had it end where it runs into the Shibuya course, according to how it's laid out on the markers, as well as adjusting that course to reflect the same information.

From Shinjuku Central Park, I went down to the west side of Shibuya Station, where the Shibuya History and Culture course starts (and has both a big map showing everything and a little marker showing you the course to where the next marker is supposed to be, although I've never found anything around there) by way of La Saison, where I got a croissant, which was fine, and past Fraoula (not open) just for navigational purposes. Today, the time to get there was about 53' of running. While still near the park, an older Japanese woman tried to ask me directions to a parking lot (I forget which one, but I think it's one used for buses), but I didn't know and didn't think to pull out my map. I think I've had to find there too, to take a tour bus out into the country. When the new station construct finishes, they are supposed to have a bus station, so maybe things will become more organized and less scattered.

The actual Shibuya course was fine. Apparently, the word went forth across Shibuya that the people were to be counted, so there were people in hooded jackets with armbands sitting on folding chairs with their laps full of rows of hand counters around intersections from Harajuku to Omotesando. Interestingly, the Shibuya course goes past a US Army base south of Aoyama Cemetery, maybe to remind people that the US occupation hasn't ended yet; it's only been 70 years, after all. The course is apparently 8 km (from Google Maps, according to my plot; officially, 8.4 km) and I spent 48'54'' running it. Since I did 29 km yesterday and was concerned about my feet and this was just the first, at least, recent run, I wasn't feeling the need to go fast, so I'm happy with that time.

This put it at 9:20, which was later than I expected, but I still decided that if I was going to do cake running, I preferred to do it without stopping for other shopping, so I headed home and stopped at Seijouishii twice (different branches) to buy one 150 g box each of unsalted butter and then hit the Lawson 100 for regular food items. I say regular food items, but I'm examining my breakfast. I've been making peanut butter again lately, and my breakfast seems to be almost 800 kcal, which is a little out of control, so I may need to dial it back. Fortunately, everything is rescalable.

After a little yogurt and a piece of fudge brownie (under 200 kcal worth: a 14 cm diameter half-recipe one seems to be 1300 kcal, compared to the cheesecake tart, which is 1000 kcal, and much flatter, although with a sugary crust), I went out again to hit Hidemi Sugino, although I stopped at Viron on the way and got a brioche a tete to see what it tastes like. It was okay, but not as good as a croissant. Next time, maybe I'll get the pistachio bostock. It seems that Hidemi Sugino decided that they were still not inconvenient enough, being open from 11 am to 7 pm, so now they are closed Sundays, as well as Monday and some Tuesdays. Fine. This is why I ignored them for so long, because I thought they were too much trouble. Still, if they have great cake, I have to get back there, but I have other plans for at least the next two Saturdays, so I don't know when it will be. Instead, after looking around Ginza Mitsukoshi, just for future reference, I went to Wako Annex (also closes at 7 pm) and got a chocolate cake whose name I forgot (and they don't print names on the recipes). Can't find a post of it on the Internet, either, unlike last time. With any luck, they will still have it next time and I can get the name. Coming back, I was again asked directions from an older Japanese woman, but we did not get past that one reference point was Kojimachi Station before an even older gentleman ran up and started talking to her and she apologized to me in English. Apparently, I look too Japanese when I run. I do know the neighborhood, but probably not names well enough to get someone to anything non-obvious. Plus, I'm pretty spaced out running and I've yet to learn to give good directions. Actually, I was not even sure whether I had passed the station yet (I hadn't), so I probably wouldn't have been much help, except that I still had my map book in my pack.

Back to the cake, it is Chocolat something for 648 yen, and there is a hard chocolate outside that's sort of folded around layers of soft chocolate sponge with a couple layers of vanilla cream (it seemed to me, but they might have been calling it mousse) and one thick layer of chocolate mousse. It was good, but I'm not that into soft sponge and I think that a great shop would do more with the idea, so although I enjoyed the cake and look forward to going back for other cake, it doesn't look like this will turn out to be a great cake shop. It's still reasonably close, if not that accessible due to the early closing time.

Decided to add some pictures for landmarks, which are placed on the map. I'll use my interpretation of the Japanese names. The Immortalized Girl and the next two are along Shinjuku Road going east from Yotsuya Station. The first is in front of Sophia University. 

Immortalized Girl

The fishing boy gets changes of clothes, for example, a rain coat.

Summer Memory

This was the direction I was facing. I was not intentionally trying to show the girl's problem of having too short a dress for swinging and her lack of pants, but I've always thought it was unfair.

Breeze

Don't know who the ladies are or the boy with them (that's their platform behind him on the right). There is a huge plaque on the other side, but it started going on about significant contributions to peacetime (?) manufacturing and manufacturing culture and I skipped to the end of that paragraph to see that it was sponsored by an electric company. After that, the print gets smaller, and it's hard enough reading those old metal plaques. I do note that the three woman (maybe muses) are facing and talking to each other, whereas there is a set of three male nudes in a park north of where Shinjuku Road runs into the road around the moat, and they are all facing away from each other doing their own things. ("What, are there two other naked guys here? I had no idea. I'm just doing a little stretching.")

Wako and Clair de Lune

Okay, (Patisserie) Clair de Lune and the patisserie at Wako Annex are now marked on the map as patisseries of interest after recent visits. It also shows (until I update it again, since there is a limit on layers) today's route somewhat (Google is not good about tracking some things and I don't know how to get it to map exactly where I want rather than using best-route find a letting me just tweak a few points, although I got lucky once and it really let me draw the route).

I started with a chocolate tart of Wako Annex, but I was out of the habit and hungry, so I forgot to photograph it; here's a Japanese page with a not very hi-res version. It's called Comme (?) Tarte Chocolat and was 648 yen, which is not cheap, but considering this is Wako, it's not as much as it could be. It was extremely good, maybe great. Certainly one of the better chocolate tarts, possible the best, that I've had. The linked article claims that there are are some nuts mixed in, although the chocolate is smooth. Hard to get back there, but I'll try.

The run was good. My times were 52 minutes going and 48 minutes coming back to 100 yen shop carrying cake. This seems to correspond to 5'20'' per kilometer and 6'12' per kilometer, but I caught Google overdoing and shortening the route, respectively, so the truth is that they were probably closer together, although running with cake with some wind after a long run out certainly was slower coming back (plus, I'm not sure what roads I actually took toward the beginning, but I think that they were at least parallel to what's mapped).

The cake was Chiboust again, for 540 yen, with the traditional (?) apple. Usually, these things are round cakes with a flat base, but this one had a crust that curled up on the two sides (seemingly, this was sliced from a longer cake). This crust is several layers of flaky pastry crust and there are large apple pieces, so it was more apple-pie-like than Chiboust usually is (which is a kind of semi-frozen mousse). It makes me think that this is a more home-made style, but it is really good, I'll say great, so I should get back there, despite the distance route problems and try some of the other things. It's a really small operation, so I probably didn't respect it when I went there before, which is why I didn't write any note on the card. Pretty cramped store right on the street and the kitchen seemed tiny, too.