La Précieuse, Montelimar and Waguri Mont-Blanc

Though it doesn't feel so long ago now, last Saturday I got a couple cakes for two from one of the shops on my quite fine group, La Précieuse on the north side of the Yotsuya Station building. I got the take-out, though they have a café space that I've used before. My choice was Montelimar, since I've had good luck with at least one cake of that name, and I like pistachio (hard to see in the picture, but the bottom is pistachio cream) and I think the top is mousse with honey and fruit. It was good. 

The other cake was the Waguri (domestic chestnut) Mont-Blanc. The sign says that you have to wait a couple minutes, because they make them fresh, but I think they didn't take so much time in the backroom. It also was good and had a meringue base, if I'm remembering correctly. So it's definitely a fine shop, but will get cut if I every manage to do a cut (I'm running out of shops to test, so it will probably depend on whether I add any new shops that make it to that level).

Crayonhouse, Fruit Rare Cheesecake

Went down to try to cake from a new shop in the Harajuku-Omotesando area. Mostly, they were closed by the time I got there, but Crayonhouse was open and happy to sell me takeout cake. They tend to be healthy type and more on the baked side, but this at least is within the scope of patisseries. And it was good. The fruit had a sort of raison flavor, though not purely that. It might just be that it uses dried fruit. 

 

Pierre Hermé, Elena

Tuesday, I worked relatively late but got to Isetan in time. I still owed Pierre Hermé a new cake, so I chose the Elena without knowing anything about it but that it was different and had pistachios. Actually, it's based on a traditional Italian cake of ricotta cheese with a fruit juice soaked sponge, cassata, which sounds less exciting. Of course, I wanted a great cake, but rarely get it. I was hoping for excellent while I ate it and thought maybe it would be justified, but in the end I'm satisfied having had a good cake and learning something new about sweets. I still remain too far ahead on this shop and it's dangerously low as far as ranking, so it could be under threat again soon, but it will probably hang on for a while as one the superb Tokyo cake shops. It's still got at least one more cake-off coming this year, even if one of the couple great tarts I'm looking for from them doesn't reappear soon.

L'Abricotier, Fromage Cru

Tried the Daita--Daizawa--Hatagaya--Kamiyama-chou--Kitazawa--Motoyoyogi-chou--Nishihara--Ooyama-chou--Shouto--Tomigaya--Uehara loop again, starting at about 7:40 am. I realized that I would actually feel bad if I was successful, because I've gotten used to running it, or at least starting to run it. No danger: I got the new part added for the shrine I discovered last time, corrected the mistake from last time, and made (after reaching the far west edge of the loop) the following turn that I was worried about late time and found that I couldn't remember what to do after that. Not what I did, as it happens, so I wrapped things up around 9:40 am.

From there, I set off for cake from L'Abricotier, which was closer than I expected, so I around more than half an your early (under their recent business hours). It wouldn't have been bad to wait, except, I was wet from the rain. Running and wet isn't so bad, but it's not warm enough for standing and wet. I went to Kouenji Stn., which isn't actually very interesting, and read news on my phone before returning. It was still raining and I was still a little early (though now there were people waiting), so I ran for about ten minutes to keep warm. I decided to eat out (and let someone go ahead of me, who took the last seat, while I was deciding what to get) so I got takeout. My spreadsheet showed I had never had Fromage Cru (rare cheesecake), which surprised me, though it's not something I usually go for, so I got that as my 20th type of cake from them. Obviously, there is fruit on it, and and a little of the inside was fruit-flavored, but it is not obvious what. Probably a red fruit mixture. As it happens, I was in the mood for Fromage Cru, which apparently I should get more of. I'll need to remember how today's was and compare it to Dalloyau's, which is still hanging on the greats list. This one hit me right, so I can call it excellent.

Ryoura, Baron

Took the afternoon off, but a typhoon was coming, so I limited how much I was out. I had more errands to do at 4 pm, but there was some rain in the air and it has been somewhat windy all day, so decided I didn't want a long ride and gave up on more important matters after returning with cake. If the typhoon doesn't blow through quick, tomorrow's commute is going to be uncomfortable.

I went to Ryoura between lunches to finally catch up on visiting shops with cake-off wins. I spent a long time choosing, making sure to get something new. I got the Baron, which I must have considered before and regretted passing up, but there are definitely no tags for it, so it must be new. This is dried fruit in meringue, so the former made me think of Christmas fruitcake, but I prefer meringue to most demi-sec cake. Definitely good.

Speaking of cake-offs,  Bigarreaux is back to not making Le Plaisir, so it looks like I'll be back to L'Abricotier this weekend for Cicilien Figue as the competitor in the third-round losers bracket.

Raika: Mille-Feuille

Was in the Shinjuku Station area and needed a rest, so went to Raika, which Sweet Sonobe's recent post (and now there's been another) pointed out I'd been overlooking. We got their two mille-feuille, one strawberry and one general fruits. They were both definitely good, but the more traditional strawberry was excellent.

Saturday, we were off around Shinbashi Station and needed a cold drink, so I ended up with Starbucks New York Cheesecake which was good but immediately forgettable beyond not being bad.

Isetan twice and long run.

Actually, running and cake were completely separate events, and I'm not completely sure about the order, but I think it was cake, run, cake.

The running was down to confirm the location of Q-pot Cafe, which Joshi+ blogged. It's a cute building and I could see cutely dressed serving girls inside, so I'm not so optimistic, especially given that it is a cafe, not a patisserie, but at least they specifically indicate takeout on the website, so I'll try it (if they really have cake by the time I can get there, which I did not check). I also tried a different route to (P.) la Glycine, which still was not optimal, though better, and confirmed that they are closed until the weekend. I was running really hard much of the time, but still only managed 13.6 km in 1:18'12'', which is disappointing, but there as a lot on-the-go navigation involved and a few people, but Aoyama Dori/Street was pretty dead because of the New Year holiday.

On the cake front, there was a pending request from last time for a visit to the Kihachi counter at Isetan, so we went there. I choose the Gateau Chocolat and the other cake was Fruits Short for 540 yen each. The chocolate cake was not fancy, but it was actually very good. 

Didn't get more than a little taste of the bottom sponge layer from the other cake, but the report on the Fruits Short (which is "shortcake" with seasonal fruit) was that it was just okay, except that it had some banana hidden in it, which we agreed was not a good idea. One hopes that a different season would bring a better class of fruits (note: I eat a lot of bananas, but in yogurt, not in cake), but since there was no hint from the top that one could expect banana inside, I'm not inclined to trust them without asking (and I generally don't want shortcake anyway, so I probably never will). 

Given that about half their other cakes were roll cakes, which are usually too soft for my tastes, I'm designating Kihachi as "good" rather than "worthy" on the map. 

Apparently, the Fruits Short was so unsatisfying that a great cake was required, which is a concept that I can well understand. The solution was Mont-Blanc, if possible from Jean-Paul Hévin, and Kihachi would have been acceptable, which I managed before they were sold out (they were close and a lot of people waiting in line outside when I left). Sensing correctly that I was not going to get even one bite of it (and since I've blogged it before), I got a Chocolat Framboise, which was 647 yen. I'm struggling regarding whether to say it was great cake, but ultimately I'm still finding that I'm burned out maybe on raspberry flavor, but I would not want to discourage anyone who isn't burned out from enjoying this excellent well-constructed cake.