Bien-être: Anzu Fraise Chocolat

It's been a while, but its been a busy week. First, Monday and Tuesday I tried to get the new cake from Bien-être (the last time I had a new cake from there was more than 11 months ago, though I haven't been looked so frequently of late) and failed, though I was fairly late. Wednesday, I had the afternoon off, so I reserved a piece to pick up in the afternoon. I also tried to get the new cake from JPH, but I dallied elsewhere, and so the last piece disappear in front of me. One place a dallied was the quite superb shop Sadaharu Aoki, which does not have a new cake, so I resorted to trying something else again. I prefer to get fresh baked goods in the morning, so I went with the Sablé Choco Chocolat. It's a chocolate covered chocolate sablé-type cookie and was excellent.

I got my ordered cake, passing through the Takeshita area, which I've completed the neighborhood running course clump and by now I have done both the new loops, clockwise and counterclockwise, though I was still working on them then (not necessarily successfully). As expected, the shop was full for eating in, so I brought back my cake for later. Then I went out by bicycle to see if, by chance, I could score the JPH cake at either the Marunouchi or Ginza shops, but no such luck. At Ginza Mitsukoshi, I did hit another quite superb shop which doesn't have enough new cakes to satisfy me, Frédéric Cassel, where I got one of their moelleux, Moelleux Pistache Figue. It was good, I'll say, but I don't need to try others in that line. Still looking for other good types of things from them.

For my second run, I did another neighborhood course, the Suga Shrine clump. I'm mention now that Monday and Tuesday I decided to start sampling the bottom-layer of cake purveyors in that neighborhood. I started with a cheese tart from Lawson 100 and a chuu cream from the Family Mart, both ok to bad (not sure which one left the nasty after taste, because I ate them on the same night): just tasteless. The Waguri Mont-Blanc from the Ministop on Tuesday was definitely bad whipped dairy with a bad aftertaste. Wednesday, though, I got a Chuu Cream from the 7-Eleven, and it was relatively good.

The main event, of course was Bien-être's Anzu Fraise Chocolat. They have this instead of the Cuit Chocolat that had been looking for last weekend, so I thought it might be just that with a different topping, but it's not a baked chocolate cake. I'm sure it's as designed, but it was not working for me at all, so I can't rate it higher than ok (which isn't as devastating to my rating of them as it used to be, but still they were only marginally open to promotion, but not any more, though another shop among the quite excellent shops is, so that should be at least one of my destinations Monday). I should say that this does not reflect what I assume were azuki beans on top, which were fine (though not particularly strong in taste, so maybe not azuki beans, or just ones soaked in anzu juice).

Thursday, I did the large loop of the Suga Shrine course counterclockwise to confirm my memory of it. I didn't try to get real cake, but instead got the Whipped Cream Roll Cake from the grocer My Basket, and it was reasonably good (which is the best any roll cake as been for me).

Friday, even though they failed on the tart, I got a Chuu Cream pack from Lawson 100, because I used to buy these probably years ago now, and found them reasonable. They still are reasonably good.

Looking forward to the weekend, when I can get to shops early enough to get good cake. Actually, based on my reconnaissance Wednesday, I'm planning two cake-offs this weekend, to take advantage of limited availability. 

Sadaharu Aoki: Noisettine Chocolat

As planned, I went to the Marunouchi main tokyo shop for P. Sadaharu Aoki Paris and got cake and tea for two. My tea was Ceylon Citronelle, which I thought was excellent this time. Due to greed, I chose the Noisettine Chocolat, even though I can get that at Isetan, whereas the Marunouchi shop has an exclusive cake that I haven't done yet, because I wasn't sure that I would want another cake from them in time to have both before the first went out of season, which isn't looking true now, but that could change with the next new cake.

As the name indicates, the Noisettine is caramelized hazelnuts and chocolate. This is very different from gianduja, which is about 7:3 chocolate:hazelnut, so a hazelnut-flavored chocolate. In this case, chocolate is the accent, and the hazelnut is able to shine. There is a lot of (caramelized?) hazelnut cream, which is at least excellent by itself, but inside are some small pieces of whole caramelized hazelnuts, so if you chew carefully to crush those up, they release a more intense flavor than I remember in other cakes. Add in the chocolate, and greatness easily follows. This is around through November and I'd like to get it through two rounds of cake-offs, since I haven't seen this before, so I don't know how many years I'll have to wait for it to appear again. Sadaharu Aoki has just moved to the top of my priority list of places to get more new cakes from (though I'm still limiting myself to one a week), as it has pulled away from the competition to clearly take at least third places and is tied for second.

I should mention that I also received half of the Maron Fruits Rouges (not the half with the whole chestnut, obviously), from which I've decided that it's better to eat this cake while it's still well chilled so the whipped cream is sufficiently firm. This might be true of mont-blanc (which this basically is, of the typical upside-down type, with the "snow" under the "mountain") in general. It's just just structural: this cake works better for me with firmer whipped cream. The ideal time I've heard for whipped cream is 10 minutes from the refrigerator, but I wouldn't wait that long when it's supportive rather than on top.

In other cake news, Jean-Paul Hévin's Tarte au Chocolate is only around for this month, so I think I'll move its second-round cake-off to next weekend. That's the only announced retirement from the line-up so far, with no word yet on what will be new in October (but at least one of their mont-blanc varieties is expected, hopefully Mont-Fuji from 2015, though I'm waiting to do second-round cake-offs with Mont-Poire Yuzu and Mont-Pomme Caramel). In related news (namely, great cakes), 14 Julliet Tokyo has stopped selling petits gateaux, so Au Lait Noix is unavailable. I'll check them again next month, as the young person out front, who likely is a part-timer, couldn't say have long this situation might last.

In the evening, I ran another one-way neighborhood course run to loop 11 out: the Minami-Aoyama east loop. I was surprised to find myself just a little lightheaded after only 30 minutes (just reaching the preceding loop), since I had a big lunch and cake earlier, but then I remembered that I hadn't had breakfast (though I got up late). I kept running and didn't have any problems. No surprises on the Minami-Aoyama east loop, though I did decide to add the Viking Bakery F to the map, since it's conceivable I would want a snack from there some day, though they don't have any pastries. Total run was a bout 65 minutes. I had initially planned to continue on to the next loop but decided maybe even before I started running to save that, since it would add another hour (it's a 10+ km loop; has two dead-end loops, at least one of which I would be obligated to include, so I don't have to make a special trip another time; and would leave me farther from home).

Presqu'île Chocolaterie, Chocolat

Couple kilometers past Shinjuku Station.

Did a long run today, about 28 km, plus another couple kilometers walking under Shinjuku Station and near Kichijoji Station. It rained in the morning and was cool to the point of being cold in just my mess running shirt, though the rain did not return despite the dark clouds all around. I knew it was a long run, so I was running between 8 and 9 km/h the whole way.

Getting near Kichijoji Station

Mid-way, in car country.

My intended target was L'epicurien, but there is not good information on when they are open other than not particularly during the posted hours, at least for cake. Today, there was a sign on the door saying that they were closed for today, though I did not read it very closely, for one reason cause it was 1 meter away, do to a shutter over the entrance. Last time I went there and they were not open for cake, at least you could go inside and see that they were not open for cake (they were just selling the non-fresh-baked baked goods, like cookies).

I had a couple alternatives that I wanted to get to in the area, so I made a second visit to Presqu'île Chocolaterie, which was open (which is kind of amazing in itself, as far as not being out of business, but someone was buying before me, so maybe they sell enough). I got "Chocolate", which is classic chocolate cake with thick layers of ganache and enough biscuit for a reasonable texture. The chocolate was a beans-to-bar Granada chocolate, which they also hard bars for. It's a little basic, but definitely excellent. That's two excellent cakes from them, so if the Excellent shops ever make room, Presqu'île is perhaps the top candidate among the Quite Good shops for promotion.

In other news, September starts tomorrow, which means we've left hottest month behind and shops can move away from summer substitutes and get back to cake. Jean-Paul Hévin has four great cakes that are being reintroduced to the line-up, one for just a month, so it's going to need to be in the next cake-off, as well as their regular Chocolate Tart, which I have not blogged yet, so maybe I'll get it (with something new from Sadaharu Aoki as a back-up, for the previous cake-off win). Another JPH great cake is thru Oct., and another is the Mont-Blanc, which is an old favorite that would otherwise be the top priority based on when I first blogged that it was great.

Cake-off: Viron's Gateau au Chocolat over Jean-Paul Hévin's Guayaquil

I'm a couple days behind because there were a couple days without cake.

Sunday, I did a similar run to Friday's, along the History and Culture course from the start of the Gaien Walk to Hibiya Park, with the only difference being that I took the slightly longer way (and definitely hillier way) past Akasaka going back but also stopped at Lawson 100. This was about 12 km at 9 km/h. There was not cake, but there was desert from Kyobashi Sembikiya, which is a fruit place. I just got the Fruit Yogurt, which was more than half banana and not any better than what I have every day for breakfast and four times the price (although we had a 500 yen ticket to use, so that covered 1/3 of two desserts). The other double-priced and slight better dessert was Melon Bavarois.

Monday, I tried going to Le Coeur Pur, which it turns out has moved, so 19 km averaging 9 km/h, though that is in the rain and passing through dense commuting crowd (with umbrellas) from the intersection of Meiji and Yasukuni north of Shinjuku San-chome Station through to at least West Shinjuku Station, and to a less extent at every Marunouchi Line station. As with Ginza, it's probably faster (or at least less frustrating and safer) to go underground and walk under the Shinjuku Station area, which is what I did coming back, from the Odakyu entrance (which, by the way, is the department store where we picked up yesterday's fruit desserts). Because I had no cake and spent an extra kilometer looking around outside and then more effort walking inside around Ogikubo Station the the department store), I decided to treat myself to a Mr. Donut Angel French cruller on the way back, which was good (they are lighter than American donuts, though I'm not sure about U.S. Mr. Donut in particular). Didn't mind not getting cake, since I was planning a cake-off for today anyway.

Cake-off meant getting Guayaquil from Isetan and then running to the Marunouchi Viron for Gateau au Chocolat, which I did successfully. I took the long, hillier way down to Aoyama Avenue going out and came back up the side of Akasaka coming back, though the times were not that different (at least carrying cake) despite the more than 1 km difference, and with the lights I'm not sure that the short way is much faster. It was about 12 km, with the great part at 10 km/h going and 9 km/h coming back. Both cakes are definitely great, so it was hard to choose (but fun comparing). In the end, I decided the Viron's Gateau au Chocolat deserved the win for it's greater simplicity (it's a uniform cake, whereas the Guayaquil is maybe half ganache in layers and falls apart when cut) and lower price, but this is not a single-elimination competition, so if and when I get to a second round, Guayaquil won't miss its chance against another first-round loser.

Sadaharu Aoki: Éclair Chocolat

As planned, I went on Thursday to Isetan and got the Éclair Chocolat (エクレール　ショコラ; 540 yen) from the Isetan counter of Sadaharu Aoki. It was definitely good, but didn't make me want to learn to make éclairs.

The the run was the similar to other recent ones, being laps around the Meiji Gingu Gaien course. This time was 5 laps at 11 km/h. Going and returning, which are about 1 km each, were 9 and 12 km/h, respectively, so it was clear that I could keep raising the pace, which has been reinforced since then.

Noix de beurre

Had business nearby, so in keeping with the season, I got a Financier aux Chocolat for 260. It tastes like a really good thin brownie, although I assume that it has almond in it. This is maybe something I'll try making if using brioche molds for canelé never pans out. (The second batch was just starting to burn at the edges but the centers did not cook enough and they stuck in the molds. I think there was not enough egg and my timing and maybe the amount of buttering of the molds were different, so I'll try correcting both those points before I give up.)