Paris S'éveille: Éclair Printanier and Bombe Amande au Citron

Some recent leg pain seems to be from a new stretch, which I  been doing morning and night. When I did it at noon, I realized it's effect. So (i) I can stretch the part that hurts, which is good (the stretching, not the hurting); (ii) I should do it less strongly.

Today did about 13 km at 5.5 km/h to Paris S'éveille and got an Éclair Printanier (spring eclair) for 630 yen and a Bombe Amande au Citron (lemon almond bomb) for 450 yen. (I also got a Bostock from fraoula on the way, still the best I know, because they caramelize the bottom.)

The éclair is chocolate custard with liquor-soaked cherries under pistachio cream. I'm still not into cherries but the liquor flavor balanced them out as far as meeting the general excellentness of this cake. Also, I'll say it was interesting because I haven't had that many éclairs.

The pastry is in a crust but is mainly non-sponge almond cake, flavored with lemon and also a little raspberry on the bottom. Sugar-glazed. Definitely bomb-like in being heavy, but excellent.

Miss-framed the photo of the shop again. Have to try again next week.

30/20/10 intervals and Del'Immo

Heavy rain and wind today, but there was a break at 7 pm, so I went out. My back is a little better again today and I ran with the backpack, but emptied it except for an umbrella on the not bad side and a phone, a couple cards, a 5000 yen bill, and a key in the front pockets. I did 2 sets of 5 30/20/10 intervals and started a third but only got thru the 4th (and that was through pretty heaving pedestrian traffic). I didn't take the shortest route, but still not long enough to Del'Immo for my first time.

Del'Immo is in Akasaka and has cake for adults. I choose the Duo Pistache for 600, starting at the high end, but I can't remember why I choose this over their other pistachio, which has figs whereas this one has cherries, so I was little surprised when I went to eat it. The full description is that it is thick pistachio cream and a pistachio and light white chocolate mousse (this cake rates only 35% chocolat) accented by morello cherry and bergamot orange. It was excellent, however, so I'll be going back.

Mostly walked home because (i) hard to sprint with cake, (ii) my back is not perfect yet, (iii) it rained some of the time (I did get bored and ran for a couple minutes, but then stopped when it started to rain again), and (iv) I was exhausted and very hungry, because intervals involving running at top speed, even for 10 seconds, are hard. Thinking I'll do 1 min/1 min intervals again to Midtown for Toshi Yoroizuka with Takagi (if I don't give up on them as great) or Neues (if I give up on getting great cake) as backups, although I'm tempted to try to get down to Ebisu to someone I haven't bought from yet (and I could go to Toshi Yoroizuka down there, if that didn't work out).

Sunday run (2) to Jun Ujita

(continued, due to blogger label length restrictions)

After the other two thirds of the run, I could barely see straight to navigate and I was out of breath for at least the last several kilometers. Granted, due to rain and work and social commitments, I only got in one run last mid-week, which is pathetic. Monday thru Wednesday are supposed to be okay this week (as far as weather, and the social side is quiet), so I'm going to try to get out every day. Plus it was 30+ degrees out today, though May was just as hot. Anyway, I'm going to try to plan more rests and drink something more fortified than water next time and see how that goes. Also, I need to end at a nearby grocery, because what I really need before cake is drinkable yogurt and vegetables.

As far as the cake, which I took home and ate after lunch, I got the Orange Caramel, which uses homemade orange confit mixed into almond dough to make a sandwich of caramel creme brulee. It's fine, at 460 yen.

I also got the Chocolat Pistache, which uses Sicilian pistachio cream and griottines (cherries) inside a chocolate dough/crust, so its kind of creamy. The cherry is very mild, so I was not even sure what fruit it was. This too is fine. I'd visit this shop if I lived in this area or went to the church across the street (which someone stopped and asked me where it was after having just passed it, driving on the short road named after it, so I am pretty sure I pointed him to the right place), both of which look very nice.

patisserie Sadaharu Aoki paris: Saya

Browsed cookbooks for French sweets, and found a couple worth getting, so now I'm going to have to decide how serious I am about it.

Then went to Aoki at Isetan and got the Saya for 830 yen (not a cheap shop). Strawberry cream dominates, although there is pistachio cream (and pistachio bits on top) and the taste of hazelnut, if I've correctly unraveled the Japanese saburenowazetto (サブレノワゼット) back to French. (An ideal cookbook would have English, French, Japanese phonetic French, and native Japanese terms all listed.) I can only taste the strawberry, but it is not too strong (although the cake is on the sweet side, suggesting that I'm really going to have to learn to get into tea), so I'm sure everything else is balancing it out to make it perfect. Even the bottom biscuit is good, of the crumbly type.

Great cake from a great shop and they gave me half a lemon macron while I was waiting, which was delicious (and would cost another 150 yen, I assume), so I'm happy, although my plan is to go somewhere cheaper next time. This is the strawberry cake to beat at this point, although there is room for different types of great strawberry cake.

I regret not centering the picture, but the strawberry pulled me left. Now if I knew which of the several settings I tried this was, I would have learned something.