à tes souhaits! Pistache d'Abricot

Monday, which is a national holiday, I ran out to à tes souhaits! with a couple back-ups in mind further out from there in case they were closed or my patience was insufficient. The person in front of me counted 21 people in front of her when she called her partner. That's about typical for this shop on a weekend (it's reasonably accessible on a weekday). They were well staffed, so the line moved a little faster than I expected, but I was glad that I had an extra jacket, long pants, and hat in my bag for the outside part of the wait (if felt nicely warm at first when I first entered, but the door is open, so not so much once I got used to it), though the person several spots ahead who also looked like he ran there was not visibly suffering without doing so. I limited myself to only a few pictures of sites that could potentially be on future neighborhood course additions.

Selection was pretty good. I went for Pistache d'Abricot, which looked like something I would like. The apricot is a layer on top, under which is pistachio mousse (with pistachio cream on top), but under that there are nutty layers, including feuillantine praliné, which I don't usually associate with a fruity cake but I do associate with modern traditional fancy cake, so my regard for them has improved. This was definitely excellent cake. I suppose the distance was about 14 km, including about 1 km to and from stations coming back (the cake was fine, though maybe only because the mousse proportion was low).

This shop will make the cut when the quite good shops gets trimmed down to half their current size (hopefully), once I get all the current group up to 3 cakes each, which will make the designation more significant. Right now this category is just the not definitely below average group, though that's average among the places that I'm will to visit. For example, there was a much smaller patisserie 300 meters away that didn't seem to be having trouble with lines.

In the late afternoon, I went out again and completed verifying my memory of the Jinguumae central loop and then did clockwise on the new version of the Jinguumae northwest loop (probably wasn't necessary to change it, but it was nice to get some of it off Takeshita street, which is difficult to do even a slow walk due to crowds and finished off the linked Jinguumae central west loop. My plan is to finish off the Jinguumae northwest loop next, and then continue down to the revised Jinguumae--Jinnan and Jinnan loops (as well as try to get pie). The other neighborhood memory-check run will be in out toward Aoyama, where I didn't manage to get to Viking F (bakery) last week, but it requires that I avoid overtime work. Other plans for the week will depend on what the cake shops put out to replace cakes retiring Jan 15.

Pierre Hermé: Cheesecake Céleste

Made another visit to Pierre Hermé, who started selling their next theme (though they still have some of the previous one), which is Céleste. I got the Cheesecake Céleste, since it had been a while since I had tried one of their cheesecakes and some of the have been excellent or great.

For running, I went down to my farthest neighborhood that I've planned and tried and made the second attempt, after considerable changes. I wasn't perfect, but it went pretty good, as far as following the planned course checking the map as little as possible. I took some pictures, now that a new building showed what it could do with all that spaces in front of it (it's a media company, I think): Christmas Circus. Totally secure Christmas is popular this time of year, pretty much straight from Halloween, though there is overlap with fall leaf viewing, which we're just seeing the end of in central Japan. Note that the building behind the tree is next door, not the building in front of the tree.

The cake was definitely good. I'll even call it excellent. It's got a lot going on, from a sablé base, biscuit infused with passion fruit and a harmony of strawberry and rhubarb.

Paris S'éveille: Mistral

Changed my Sunday from going to a new place to going to Paris S'éveille for a new cake. I was thinking of going to a new place, since I hadn't visited one for a week, but then I decided that places should remain new until I catch them up to other shops of the same level, in terms of numbers of fresh cakes. Since I'm still doing that with Eclat des Jour, I'm covered.

I did some more exploring of new paths at the beginning (adding maybe half a kilometer and not really finding anything I want to use, though going into Meiji Gaien might still be worth it to stay off the main road longer) and then used the route under Old Yamanote Road that I was on yesterday to do the short path including it, which included part of the route into Gakegei Daigaku Station and avoiding the randomness of my route past Nakameguro Station. It was over 12 km, but just barely closer to 9 km/h than 8 km/h. It's been a while since my knees were sore at the beginning. There will be a 30 hour rest before the next run, so hopefully that will be enough to cover and I won't have to take an actual rest day (again, greed is the issue).

They had a couple new cakes that the "Chef" recommended that looked good, but they also had Mistral, which seems like something I've seen before but not posted on, at least. This is a pâte sucrée chocolate base, with a biscuit biscuit, lavender Bavarian cream, chocolate coating, and the fruit is black currant and blackberry, plus there is wine, though I forget the details. It all works together and of course I like chocolate, so I thought it was excellent.

Ginza run to Dalloyau: Douceur de Peche

Today was a normal run to Ginza. Still not so many people along the moat run portion, so maybe people are on vacation in August. This time I got the Douceur de Peche, which is complex. There is shortbread as a base, fromage blanc mousse and peach slice gel around it. There is also a lemon flavored biscuit underneath everything, and vanilla icing on the outside. The outer layer was a little more gel than I like, but for the season, I did not have trouble with it. Great cake from a great shop, so I keep going back. But why the raspberry on top? Seems designed to throw you off.

Reverse run from Pierre Hermé: Carrément Chocolat

The first reverse part was I bought cake from Pierre Hermé at Isetan, took it home, and then went for a run. I did go by Neues and confirmed that I could catch them open, with cake, but not the cake I was trying to get info on. I might have gotten bread, but 400 yen for half a little loaf is too much, even for German rye.

The other reverse part was I mainly did the reverse course of last time except excluding where I got lost and a double back near the Diet Building. There was a demo there against the U.S. base at Okinawa (judging from their sign) and war (which was all I understood from their chants). I liked the drum, but there was a crowd of people leaving along some streets. It was a change from (tobacco) slaves and (phone) zombies, but still a little in the way. I added an extra up-down early on that I would usually skip.

I took a picture of this patisserie that I have some affection for, although it has only simple things: A la Bon Heure.

Cake was Carrément Chocolat from Pierre Hermé, one of the great [superb] shops, for 756 yen (one of their cheaper ones). The layers are a chocolate square on top, chocolate glaze over everything, a 1/4 layer of chocolate cream, a 1/4 layer of chocolate mousse, and then chocolate "biscuit", which seemed to be a couple millimeters of hard chocolate as base for the upper layers and then a dense 1/2 layer that together gave almost a crunch but not quite. Great cake, although I ate it straight and by myself, so by the end I wished that I had prepared a beverage to cut it with, because it is very sweet.

Rest day, with cake from Jean-Paul Hévin: Salome

It's Wednesday, so I went to Isetan (and no running). This week's patisserie is Cacahouete, which is a good to very good shop near the Meguro River northwest of Nakameguro Station: which is a very good area for cake. It also has Patisserie 1904 and an Aux Bacchanales. The Tokyo Castella Factory and Il Pleut sur Seine are notable, and Picassol is popular (although not so much a cake shop and I've never bought there). The cheese cake at Johann is interesting (4 types), but I'm not that into Ecole Criollo, I have to admit. Also, I've had one of the apple pies from Matsunosuke (松之助), which was okay, but not their NY cheese cake, which is their specialty (I really prefer baked, but I'd like to give theirs a try some day).

Anyway, I've visited Cacahouete several times, so I didn't need to take advantage of their visit today. Instead I went to my #1 shop, Jean-Paul Hévin (also found in Ginza, Tokyo Midtown, and Omotesando). I got a cake that is new this year (and not sold in their European stores), so this is only my second time having it. It's the Salome (サロメ). As you can see, there is a top chocolate layer (with some decorations: one sign of class is that the square/diamond sticking up that has their name on it is chocolate, not plastic). Below that is very light (and so wobbly, so watch out), soft vanilla mousse. There is a couple-millimeter connecting layer below it with larger air bubbles which makes it look more breadlike or cakelike, but you have to look closely. Below that is a firm (or the cake would collapse) dark chocolate layer on top of a thin chocolate biscuit. Great cake, at 674 yen.