Atsushi Hatae, Chocolat Noir

I was busy and then put off blogging, but not eating cake, so I'll update. On Thursday, I set off for Atsushi Hatae for a fourth cake, the target for the quite fine shops. Since the first three were all excellent, it's in no danger of getting bumped, regardless of the result, but I am urgently looking for something great I can put in a cake-off against the new to Tokyo JPH cake. This is the one I passed on last time for a less obvious choice, which means this is the obvious choice for me, as is also pretty clear from the picture: mostly chocolate. I think this is Chocolat Noir (tricky, because Noix would also fit, so I might have to update this later, but I'm not as mobile as I used to be, so I'm not sure when it's going to be convenience to do that). Anyway, thick chocolate, a little layer there at the bottom of pralin, and a good biscuit. Like the other cakes, sophisticated modern French petit gâteau, and excellent. 

Looping the moat to Canal Cafe Boutique: Chocolat Framboise

Light rain. Went to Ginza to visit the CW-X Conditioning Store in Nishi Ginza, since my broken toenails have put holes in my running socks. Also got UV gloves, just because I should have gotten them before. Hope I'm still running next year so that I really need them. Forgot my watch, but was not planning to run hard anyway, as I need to rest my back. It was about a 13 km run. Higher chance/frequency of rain this weekend, so don't know whether I'll get to run much. I'd like to go to Jiyuugaoka and visit Origines Cacao for great cake, but might end up doing the Shinjuku History and Culture course, which would put me next to Del'Imo, although it's not that far to Shinbashi/Ginza (of course, I could go east to west, but that wouldn't leave me in a good position for cake). My next planned bigger run would take me to Patisserie Ces Jours, but I'd want to do that on Sunday, because I can start earlier and have time to run back.

Back to today: circled the moat to go up to the Canal Cafe Boutique at Iidabashi, just because it looked like it should have good cake. Actually, only one that I was interested in and it's a pretty standard type, the Chocolat Framboise for 518 yen. It's chocolate mousse with a little raspberry, but there was some white cream inside too, which probably kept the chocolate mousse in check. Also, nuts in the bottom, which is unusual, but good. Not a bad cake of its type but not that memorable. I don't need to go back and don't expect to, but I could get the same thing or try something else.

12 km to Neues: unknown recommended cake

I ran 12 km, but otherwise, I ran into various problems. 

First, going by the Prime Minister's place added time, because I forgot that I needed to cross to the other side of the street, and there are a lot of lights anyway (though not streetlights: a little dark on the sidewalk). 

Then I got a little lost toward the end and got to Neues just after they had closed. Not that it was close to 11 pm, just they close whenever they want, apparently. The guy bringing in the sign made sure that I was looking for carry out and not dinner before letting me in. Another customer came in after me, also looking for cake and then a blond lady, although she left when she saw that they were sold out of almost all the bread, waving at the guy in the back kitchen area through the glass. 

I asked what the guy who let me in recommended, and there is it below (I may need a better camera than my iPod), whatever it is. It seems to be chocolate layers, probably with nut cream layers. There was a little texture like coconut in there, but it could have been chopped nuts: I should really dissect these more thoroughly, but I didn't see coconut. The cake was very good, but because they were closing, there was a guy behind me also buying cake, I was really tired, and it has some German name (or Austrian), I don't know what it was. Their webpage is here, but it's way out of date as far as cake that they actually had, and I could not find a picture of mine (at least not today's) at the Tabelog restaurant website.

Anyway, it was 480 yen, I think, and very good, as I wrote, so I'll go back there again (and update this on what it actually was), but I always need to keep in mind that they might decide to close early and be prepared to head over to nearby Tokyo Midtown, assuming that they are not closed yet (or I could go back to Libertable, who I passed going through Akasaka, and has expensive cakes and is open late, though the two cakes that I've tried so far, while very interesting, were not to my taste: Luxe, a chocolate black truffle cake, and Robuste, which has banana and passion, along with chocolate and nuts).