Pierre Gagnaire, Crème de Fraises et Citron

The midweek cake for the midweek holiday was Crème de Fraises et Citron from Pierre Gagnaire, where everything was 20% off. Hope they're still in business for my next cake-off. As the name implies, this is basically just cream flavored with lemon and strawberry, with a thin sablé cookie underneath and some sheet chocolate to fence it in. But again, its a collection of good stuff that works together, so I'm happy to call it an excellent cake.

I ran in the afternoon on neighborhood courses around Omote-Sandou, where I've had to revise the loops to the north, east, and south loops due to finding additional sites. I decided to dump a park site that's attached to a public housing area that's now fenced off, probably about to be torn down, now that they're done with the south half, in order to simply the north loop somewhat. Looking ahead, the next Saturday, I finally got them all sorted out and confirmed clockwise and counterclockwise, so I can move on to other things. I'm mention, that I decided I shouldn't discriminate against the fast food places if they have takeout desserts, so I added McDonald's (okay syrupy apple pie), Freshness Burger (okay poundcake), and Mos Burger (frozen mini cheesecakes). I'm adding a couple cafes as well, if I can ever catch them open (if they are open during the state of emergency).

Frédéric Cassel, Tarte Calamansi

Continuing from Ryoura, I put on my mask and used the train to go to Ginza Mitsukoshi and get the new cake of the month from Frédéric Cassel: Tarte Calamansi. The tart is just what the name says, though I've never heard of this fruit before. It's a coconut tart base, obviously, and the top is mixed calamansi and vanilla cream, with lime peal sprinkled in. It's very tropical, which is a hard sell for me, but ultimately it won and I can it was excellent, though I'm not sure that I need more calamansi cakes, particularly.

The afternoon run was all local loops, all successfully completed (about 2.5 hours of running): the Minami-Motomachi--Samon-chou--Suga-chou--Shinanomachi--Wakaba--Yotsuya loop, which is up to 8.44 km and hits all the main Soka Gakkai buildings now, the Daikyou-chou--Shinanomachi loop, which is up to 2.32 km and now includes the folk music museum, since Soka Gakkai claims it on the map of the complex (they also claim their main newspaper buildings, but I'm drawing the line there, as well as buildings that are dormitories or guest houses or shuttered, which might not be fair, but it's hard enough working everything in), the Samon-chou--Yotsuya loop, which is up to 1.1 km (though the link to the previous loop is now much shorter) and now includes the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Headquarters and whatever the above shop is, the Sendagaya central loop, which is up to 1.90 km and now needs to be part of the cluster as the loop leading to it, as does the final loop, the Sendagaya 3 loop which is up to 404 m and has an OK, which is a grocery store, well named since the Two-Layer Creamcheese Tart I got there was only ok.

Origines Cacao, Forêt Noire

As a substitute for a superb shop that Origines Cacao is challenging, I got another cake from there. This time I really did rest from running by going by bicycle, which is not much of a workout. I should have done indoor exercises too, but I was too hungry. There were only three regular kinds of cake left and some glass desserts that might qualify as verrines, but I did not need to go there as I've never had their standard Forêt Noire, because I don't generally like forêt-noires (Black Forest cake). However, I found that it's not actually a forêt-noire, its just chocolate cake with lots of cream and chocolate cream, which is really weird (the name refers to the the cherry liquor that this doesn't), though only the same way that "short cake" isn't made with short cake, though that's true in my American cookbook as well. It's a simple cake, and cheap (only 400 yen), but good. Origines Cacao has enough of a history of great cakes (all but one never seen again) that it remains at the top of the quite exceptional shops, scoring above all the superb shops, but based on a lot fewer cakes (always an advantage).

Frédéric Cassel, Choux Cassis

Was windy today, due to a typhoon passing to the west, enough to stop some train lines. No rain in the evening though, so it was mostly fine for running. I imagine most running groups cancelled early, so there were not many people out on the moat course. Saw one tree had broken off and was floating in the moat to the east and someone official looking was inspecting the trunk when I reached it near Hibiya intersection.

Went back to Ginza Mitsukoshi by the scenic route (not so much as a plan, but I just missed the first traffic light, which is followed by a second traffic light that you can't make at any reasonable speed, so I turned and went down to Aoyama-doori Avenue, which adds more than 1 km, I think (especially if you start by trying to go the opposite direction). I walked from the big Ginza scramble (Sukiyabashi), but it was still about 75 min or running total round-trip, plus walking underground from there, as Marunouchi Line Ginza Station ti Ginza Mitsukoshi and then to Viron by the zigzag underground route.

For cake, I got Choux Cassis from Frédéric Cassel, which is the first time I've gotten this inspiration cake, one of three lately, along with a cheese charlotte and a tart. I would have been happy with this month's tart, which is blueberry, but wanted to finally try the cream puff, even though I've never liked cream puffs with whipped cream or fruit or any flavor of custard but vanille. However, the custard in this was a really rich dark red from the cassis/currant. It has a very strong fruit taste without being very sweet at all. And there was no feeling of a mismatch having the cassis whipped cream. I ate it in the 9th floor open area, since I figured it would be hard to carry home on foot due to wind. I still found that I really prefer cutting the pastry with a sharp knife versus my teeth, but it was still excellent and I look forward to trying other version in the future.

Il Pleut sur la Seine, Chou à la Crème

Typhoon coming again, so there should be strong winds tonight and tomorrow, but it's crossing Japan on the west side, so should not be too bad in Tokyo away from the sea, rivers, mountains, and lowlands. Did a run out to Sarugakucho to visit Il Pleut sur la Seine, the most recent cake-off winner. Maybe because they had been closed a few days, the selection of cakes was pretty weak. The best I could do was a Chou à la Crème. Once in a while these are special, but this one was pretty much standard, which is what I would expect from this shop. That works for me with their saint-marc, but not for this. Still, it was good. It's smallish, but with a fairly complete but thin shell. The filling is whipped cream and custard cream, sort of lightly mixed, but thankfully no fruit. The only other new fresh "cake" was a banana version; I think I'll pass on that as long as there are other options.

Didn't say much about this week's running in the last post. Monday, I just went down to Tokyo Midtown, so just around 40 minutes of running, but I tried to do a good bit of it fast. As a result, I had a lot of foot pain Tuesday, which seems to be the routine. It didn't hurt so much by the time I ran again in the evening, but was tough every time I stood up from sitting at a desk for long. Did a lot of stretches through the day for my heel. So didn't run that fast Tuesday but was my more usual 60+ minutes (or 70+, I had to go to my back up). Wednesday, it was back to being a pretty hot run, as was Thursday. Wednesday I had already eaten my cake, so I could semi-sprint the last 400 m and actual build some muscle. Thursday, I was carrying cake and it was too hot to do that. Both days, I was tempted to walk home, but told myself that I could run as slowly as I wanted to, which worked. I'm actually more comfortable running and it's easier in a way to just fall forward and keep catching yourself running than walking. Once I get moving coming back, even on the hills, I'm okay plodding along. I'm missing the few cools days we had last week, though. It's going to be hot and humid after the typhoon.

Toshi Yoroizuka: Jungfrau

Yesterday, I did reconnaissance for cakes I had planned doing a cake-off with today, as well as other visits which did not give any new information. Along the way, in a park, I ate a Croissant from Bigarreaux that was fluffy but with a sugar coating on the outside, I think. This was done by bicycle over about 3 hours. In the afternoon, I did an hour or so of neighborhood running, but it's a little hazy now, but the photo evidence is that I was working on the east part.

Today, I started in the opposite direction but realized before crossing Meiji Doori that I didn't have enough cash with me for a cake-off. That made me reevaluate what my priority should be and instead I explored a proposed western Harajuku route first before swinging back to the extreme southeast neighborhoods (running the opposite direction as yesterday) and finding that I really don't know that route well yet, so I'll have to work on it more this week (at least one day will be Isetan, so that shouldn't be a problem, except that it is a little far even going the most direct route). I ended at Midtown, after about 90 minutes of running, and mostly walked back with a Jungfrau, which seems to be a Swiss version of a Mont-Blanc, though I don't know what's in it besides the usual whipped cream under chestnut paste and chestnuts. Inside the cream were pieces of actual cake sponge, which I think were the source of a ginger flavor. The base was a very interesting meringue cookie, very thick (around 1 cm at most), which was baked to a quite dark outside but white on the inside. It was definitely good but not really good enough to keep Toshi Yoroizuka in the top 7. Before I officially demote them, though, I'll see whether either of the top contenders, Bien-être or Éclat des Jours, can do as well with the same number of cakes.

Tops: Chocolate Cake

Back from New Year travel and did a lot of running Wednesday, more than 2 hours, and there was some walking around too. I had intended to practice some of the newer courses to learn them, such as Akasaka, but my phone failed on me. I thought I had messed up my Google maps online, but apparently my phone was just disconnected from the network and needed a reboot. I did get a couple pictures of new places for the neighborhood map and then went and found out when Toshi Yoroizuka and Bien-être would open up again by physically going to their shops (at least they are willing to post information on their doors, even if not online). In the evening, I was at Isetan again and got something that I haven't had for several years and figured I should review, Tops' Chocolate Cake. Actually, I'm not sure what cake of theirs that I've had in the past, as it was many years ago. This is a layer cake of chocolate cream and sponge, with some walnuts, but they are very mild. It's definitely good cake, though not my kind of thing (either, milk chocolate or sponge), so I don't expect to be back soon (plus, the smallest cake is a two-person size).

(Fri.) Schloss Bäckerei: Chestnut Premium Chou

Since the first cake was judged excellent, I changed my plan and got cake again at Schloss Bäckerei at Isetan. I say "cake", but this was a cream puff with the top made up like a mont-blanc (they even warned me when I was buying it that it was a cream puff, not a normal mont-blanc, which I had not noticed but was okay with, due to the limited selection of cake; it is, I'm assuming, actually a bakery anyway).

For running, I tried my South Minami neighborhood running course for the first time, which I'm listed under Aoyama in my map (wish I knew why all the pictures I uploaded to the original Aoyama map are now gone). and found various problems (e.g., not crossing at a cross-walk for a two-lane road, which was true a few places) and later noticed that I left out a little park, so the maps has gotten more convoluted. It was a little under 10 km at a little under 9 km/h.

The cream puff was not even a authentic chou pastry, but the Japanese soft version, and yet, it was actually good. I've complained before about mixing custard and whipped cream, but if you add chestnut paste, which goes with whipped cream, it balances out. The soft shell holding it together was tasteless, but then it is not intended to have a taste and I'm not above enjoying Japanese-style "shuukuriimu". Since the second cake was at least good, I'll have one more on Monday and hold off on cake Tuesday.

L'Atelier du Sucre: Pave Montmartre

Did a follow-up visit out to L'Atelier du Sucre by bicycle. I got less lost than some other distant trips, but I still got pretty turned around at one point and then sort of wandered between two points that I wanted to visit. I ended up with the endpoint of a history and culture course that I wanted to confirm (which I did: I confirmed that I had gone far enough last time) before wandering south and eventually getting to the cake shop. I ate outside on the terrace again, like last time (which is how I knew going by bicycle would be fine, although there are parks around there, at least within cycling distance). This time I got Pave Montmartre, or at least that matches the phonetics. It's three layers of cream, vanilla, chocolate, and caramel, so it resembles yesterday's great cake in that respect but was very unsatisfying. It was a good, I guess, but not worth coming back. Still, they have fancier cakes than one might expect for the location (and they sell some sec or demi-sec things at a counter at Tokyo Station) and I rated the first cake as excellent, so I should come back in a couple years and try a third.

Frédéric Cassel: Mille Feuille Finger Framboise

Cool with a mist of rain today, so should have been comfortable, but I felt slugish. Not sure why, since actually my average time over 9.6 km was 9.9 km/h, which was faster than I expected.

Visited Frédéric Cassel at Ginza Mitsukoshi again and got Mille Feuille Finger Framboise, which was excellent, as their Mille Feuille Finger series usually is. This is layers of white chocolate, two layers of cream---mango and passion fruit, and raspberry (thus, Framboise)--- and mille-feuille.

En Vedette: Saint Marc Pistache

Finally got over to En Vedette in Miyoshi, Koto-ku. Can't say how long I ran, but about 2 hours at a low speed, so probably 9 km/h, or that at least would match the distance and estimated time. Got a little lost both ways (didn't take the same way back, as I stopped by at a few places along the way, for research). I got the Saint Marc Pistache (518 yen), which is what you would expect, except that there is a thin red layer under the chocolate cream that did not have much impact--I would guess cherry, since that's commonly paired with pistachio. It was creamy and it was definitely good, but didn't really excite me, so big plan to go back again. Nice looking little shop though, and I like the neighborhood, other than the low elevation (which is also true of Ginza), but not particularly convenient for me, which is why it's taken quite a while to get around to it.

Coming back, I went the north way around the Inner Moat course, where this time of day is mostly high school students, though they've gotten pretty ahead of me. Further up, there were a couple tourists, because of north exits for the East Gardens.

Bubó Barcelona: Nameraka

I planned to do a cake-off, but talking myself into waiting, as there are other things I want to get to during the week, so I want to keep to my Saturday plan. Instead, I went to Isetan to take advantage of the visit of Bubó Barcelona (not that Omotesando is so far, but Isetan is cheaper and easier) and got Nameraka (799 yen), which is Japanese for smooth, though it was written in katakana, like a foreign word. This Isetan version has extra chocolate on the sides, if I'm to believe Bubó Barcelona's Facebook picture, but otherwise is supposedly chocolate cream (must be really thick cream) and vanilla cream with dried raspberries on a very nutty base, I assume hazelnut. Also some mint there too, or some green thing at least a little minty, but overall the cream and nuttiness, without actually nuts, dominated. It was excellent. I'm not sure that it was more than the sum of its parts, but the parts were excellent.

For running, I went down to Midtown again and confirmed that Sadaharu Aoki there does not have the next new cake I should get (need to get to Marunouchi), or at least one that I've put off until now, since its green tea and Japanese sweet beans. However, I didn't research ahead of time, and Toshi Yoroizuka was closed except for the bar. I guess I might be back there again Friday night. Another place also has a cheesecake that I should eventually get around to. I was pretty sore after yesterday this morning, though no so much by the time it was evening, but I only did 7 km on the low side of 9 km/h.

Atelier Kohta: Mont-Blanc

In response to their winning a round of cake-off, I finally got back to Atelier. My best option for a new cake was Mont-Blanc, again, for 470 yen. This one was definitely good. It's a chestnut on top, French chestnut paste which was sweeter than average (reminding me of frosting), rum-flavored cream, which was good, on a nice almond tart. I was happy with it, but did not find it special (besides being sweet, which does not impress me, even if it appeals to my sweet tooth). Still a fairly good shop.

The run was fine. I seem to have been slow lately, so I tried to push it a little harder and averaged 11 km/h going out and 10 km/h coming back, for only about 6 km total. I don't have any short runs for next week's weekday runs, so I might only be able to reach one new shop, due to running budget constraints (104 km at 12 km/h is expected to be the maximum for 7 days) unless I take a rest day, which might happen just from spring weather.

Pierre Gagnaire: Chocolat Gianduja

My running is scaling down as I approach the weekend runs, which aren't planned as that long, although Sunday has room to grow if I decide to add to the basic plan of Jiyugaoka and Isetan as sources for great cakes for another cake-off. Specifically, I ran just under 10 km at about 10 km/h, which was actually a little faster than I had planned, so probably going to run right up to my running budget limit on Saturday (unless Fraoula finally comes through with the one cake of theirs that I've rated as great, in which case I'll maybe switch Limevert to Sunday).

The cake was Chocolat Gianduja, where the only other information on the card besides the Japanese pronunciation and price (600 yen) was "Chocolate Praline". This turned out to be mostly cream under the chocolate coating, half plain and half apparently hazelnut (or the name doesn't make sense). There was also a little spongy chocolate (or maybe Gianduja) cake in the middle and a flavorful sablé on the bottom that I'll guess was hazelnut, though I'm not that good at even basic identifications. It was definitely good cake, but did not have enough flavor to balance all that cream for me to get excited about it. Since it's very windy today and might rain, I chose to eat in (there are some tables in the sort of hallway next to the shop), where the lighting is not very flattering, at least for my phone camera.
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FOBS: Mont-blanc

Finally visited another new shop from among those Sweet Sonobe has mentioned, (Patisserie) FOBS, which stands for "Farine Oeuf Beurre Sucre". It's over 8 km away and closes at 8 pm, so there was not a huge selection when I got there. I think the other cake was their Fraise, which also looked pretty standard, like what I chose, the Mont-blanc for 540 yen. 

This particular mont-blanc is about equal parts French chestnut paste, unsweetened cream, and meringue. The meringue had more than just sugar and eggs, but did not seem heavy on almond powder. Can you make meringue with flour, or does that destroy it? Also, alcohol somewhere, supposedly, and inside was a little cassis. It was definitely quite good (I should say that I like a mild chestnut) but it was not so distinctive., which I don't mind, but affects my rating.

I was a little slower today than yesterday, on purpose: 10 km/h going out and 9 km/h coming back. I mean to mention yesterday that I did shopping Monday, which gave me more than 6 km, so my Sunday to Tuesday 3-day runs broke 70 km. The next couple days I have more local shops in mind. The weekend runs too are more modest, maybe 25 km per day. The weather is not looking great, so it's just as well. I should have the budget to hit more new shops on the weekday, and I extend farther on the list of what's accessible. (I've got one 15 km each-way shop that's open until 9 pm. I'm saving that for last, but there are only a few others on the list right now.) 

Limevert: Pruneau

For my long run of the week, I went over to Limevert again, taking a longer path of going south to the middle of Aoyama Cemetary before heading west to Roppongi Ave and then over to my usual route down to Old Oyamate Ave. (though I took the southern branch for some reason) and then down to follow Meguro River northwest and then the green path to Umegaoka, and from there along the train line.

I ate in again (obviously) and got chocolate again, this time Pruneau (580 yen) according to the French, but the Japanese name seems to be phonetic for "Brick" (though wrote down "Buritta": hard to write those cards). This is a couple solid chocolate sticks on top, then cocoa powder, chocolate mousse, chocolate cream, a little unlisted chocolate sponge (probably for cohesion), chocolate ganache, and finally a feuillantine base for crunch. I'm not completely confident, but I'm going to say it was great and look forward to testing that in the future.

From there, I went back a different route so I could stop by at Fraoula because I had overlooked that theirs was the first cake I rated here as great, so I should have started with them (I was greedy back then and had two great cakes on that day). Unfortunately, though they were happy to see me again, it seems to be something that they make on an irregular schedule. They offered to give me a call when they made it next, but my schedule is a little more complicated than that and I don't mind stopping in occasionally. I bought there Croissant d'Almonde, which was great. It is the soft kind, maybe with almond syrup, but the powered sugar definitely was part of the appeal for me. More than for cakes, this is a quite excellent place for the few pastry they make, so I need to get there more often just for that, though I'm not sure whether I've missed anything at this point.

Chez Cima: Creme Anjou

Raining, and I don't have a big running budget, so got cake at Isetan. Well, actually I got Creme Anjou (Crème d'Anjou be the correct French), but it's their specialty, I thought, so it seemed fair. I went down to the Meiji Gaien course and did just two laps. On the track, I did 0.9 km at 9 km/h and 1.75 at 8 km/h, but I wasn't good at keep my speed down on the way there and back, but at least it was under 8.5 km/h, I think. Anyway, 8 km/h is my new median/benchmark speed, but my distance is down from two months ago. I'll have to go back to the shortest way to Ginza next time. I'm hoping to do it all running, but I should definitely keep in under 8 km/h and walk part way back again.

The cake (and there really was a tiny bit of sponge cake in the center, though I'm not sure what flavor the red indicated. It was good, and different, but not special. I keep changing how I compute shop rating, but I'm deciding now that one good and two excellent cakes, when I'm choosing the best looking ones, does not an excellent shop make, so both Chez Cima and Demel are going down to "good" status, although maybe someday I'll partition good shops into good and near-excellent shops, and they'l start out in the latter, but I still have 4 greats, 5 near-greats, and 24 excellent ones, so no hurry on that. Cake did not photograph well, with white on white. Might be a settings problem.

Yu Sasage: Symphanie

Took a long walk, 23+ km round trip, to Yu Sasage at a good speed (little over 6 km/h going, a little under 6 km/h coming back). I'm tired, but the leg seems sound. However, I've hit 101% walking/running load relative to my peak as of 1 week ago and I didn't exercise last Sunday, so I don't have the budget for a full-speed round trip Nihonbashi, which is my goal, so I either need to take the train back (which could be justified if I buy perishables) or take the bicycle out for the first time in a while and figure out how to count that in my budget (in terms of calories, its about 1/4 running for slow riding, supposedly, but calories don't really capture the physical strain, which is what I'm after).

Unfortunately, Yu Sasage let me down. I'd already had both the specialties displayed, and there were a lot of new things, maybe because they were coming off a holiday, but I chose one of the couple other things. This has mascarpone cheese, cream, and an earl grey biscuit. It started off good, and I was considering whether it was excellent. It had a kind of fruity flavor, in addition to the tea. For some reason, though, by the second half, the fruity sweetness was not working for me. Honey in that top layer? Not sure, and not sure honey would be a problem, but ultimately, I can't say this is good. It mostly worked or worked most of the way, so I'll say it was "ok". Maybe it just caught me at a bad time or it needs a particular beverage; I had water, but since it's already tea, I wouldn't think it needed anything else to balance it. It's supposed to already be a balance. Sorry, forgot again to get a shop picture. And cake fell over, so it got a little smushed.

Ryoura: Tarte Chocolat Caramel Salé

Cycled out to Yoga in western Setagaya to visit Ryoura, which seems to be a hot topic right now, seemingly for good reason. No line near opening time, which is late, 11:00 am, but it's a nice shop. They had Tarte Chocolat Caramel Salé and I read the description as far as "nuts", after which there was no reason for me to resist my impulse for chocolate. I'm very biased, but think this is great. If other places would make more chocolate, salt caramel tarts with nuts, maybe I would become more discriminating but until then, I'll appreciate this shop's accurate anticipation of what I want. Also, the price was 520 yen, which is reasonable for great cake. This is basically a standard chocolate mousse dome, complete with (bavarian) cream, on top. The base is a tart shell, a layer of chocolate biscuit/cake, and then the caramel. Also, the outer coating is obviously very reflective; not sure what I could have done about that for the photo.

I was cycling, so my route was somewhat random and I ended up going past Patisserie Main Mano again, so I decided to stop and see what they had. I was thinking they were more a bakery, because their other shop nearby (both in the Yoyogi area) is a boulangerie and café, but they had some cakes. I had already had cake, so I got a choux cream for 200 yen. It was good. Also, they filled it after I ordered, which seems to be the best way. It rolled around a little before I took this picture, so don't judge to harshly.

Went over to Takashimaya and verified that they have Ma Priere cakes, so I don't need to run out there tomorrow. Already have plans to visit L'Abricotier on Saturday and expect to get cake at Isetan earlier in the week, so my best bet for unvisited places hard to go to on a workday is Avranches Guesnay. I got it from Joshi+, which isn't that reliable (since its priority is to go some place new and it's been running for a years now), but the online info looks okay and it's close on a rainy day. Guess I need to dig further into Sweet Sonobe to make a plan for Sunday, unless I want to get out to Eclat des Jours, which didn't look quite as good, I think, but still worth visiting.

15 km to Origines Cacao: Alicante

It turns out that it takes about 45 minutes to get to the Nihonbashi Takashimaya, which is 15 minutes less than I left myself, but I could still get in and look around enough to see that they did not have what I wanted at the Au bon Vieux Temps counter (I wanted sauces, but they seem to just have cookies). Next I went to Origines Cacao, where I expect them to be sold out, but they weren't. Fortunately, although I didn't remember, I didn't get the thing that I had already gotten there (although that had been great), but instead got the Alicante (I think the Roman spelling is correct) for 550 yen, which is pistachio mousse around chocolate cream (again, I think; I'll need to go back and confirm; it seemed rather nutty). Really great cake. I've got to go there more, even if it is small and inconvenient. I managed to reach the 105 min mark before sitting down to eat it (I was out for 2 hours, although there were the usual stoplights and stops for shopping). Today, of course, Libertable had Zennith, but I already had my great cake, so no problem.