Cycling to Au Bon Vieux Temp

Went cycling, which in theory should be faster but I also tend to not follow known routes or check the map often, so I end up going way out of my way, like today.

The destination was Au Bon Vieux Temp out by Ooyamadai Station on Toukyuu　Ooimachi Line, in Setagaya. They are on my great shop list, although I'm having my doubts. I've made excuses in the past for cakes that might be great, except for not holding up under the extreme heat. This time I got three cakes with not very good prospects (I don't know what to pick, so I just picked them in the order of the display, except that I skipped the seasonal mixed fruit tart, because it looked small and pathetic and I've never been impressed by mixed fruit tarts; in particular, citrus fruits don't go well with most other fruits). None of these had much inherit chance of being great and they were not, but other great shops have shown that they can surprise me, which these didn't really.

First is the Fromage Cru, rare cheese cake for 380 yen + tax. Like all the cakes in this set, it's very small (just a few centimeters wide). Definitely good flavor, so I'd say better than average for rare cheese cakes, although it was just a little more gelatinous than I like. I usually can't be bothered to read and remember the details, but online it says that they use white wine rather than lemon juice, so now I totally want to do that with my baked cheese cake, except I also want to do chocolate, which would sort of confuse the experiment.

Next was Biscuit aux Fruits for 400 yen + tax. For sponge cake with fruit, this was very good, especially considering that there is banana in the middle, which I don't generally care for or consider appropriate but worked fairly well here. But sponge cake even with mostly custard rather than simply whipped cream has pretty limited appeal for me, so I can't say that this is great, just very good.

Finally, the signature dessert of the shop was 420 yen + tax. This is a Brûlée of custard and pear. Very good, and very alcoholic (pear brandy).

No running: Lettre d'Amour [Closed] and Fraoula

At Lettre d'Amour, I got their Shirogane Fromage (Shirogane is neighborhood name), which is their cheese cake, for 600 yen. There were actually several customers, so I had to wait a few minutes, but most of those disappeared upstairs to the cafe by they time I had made my decision. The cake is three kinds of cream cheese blended into a mousse with a little citrus juice and gelatin with a sponge base. I went through a progression of thinking it was good cheese cake through about half, not something I need more than half of in the second half, and maybe not something I need at all afterward, although I'm not sure why. Rare cheese cake is not my favorite anyway. That's only my fourth from there, and there were plenty more cakes. More importantly, I found a good nearby park to eat in.

It was Sunday afternoon, so Ryoco had people lined up outside (early afternoon, that is; late afternoon when they run out, they just close), despite the light rain. From experience, I would say it would take about an hour (for 10 people: most people get several pieces and it takes time to box those up well), so I passed and circled back to Fraoula, who are never that busy (I hope they have some restaurant contracts; there were a couple people in the back busy, so they must have something).

I got this Senteur for 486 yen, which is Earl Grey flavored and has prunes. I was very happy with it. I'd be a good compliment with something sweeter, which I mean in a good way.

This is the Arre, I think (the register is having a little problem printing). It's a huge, flat, crunchy thing, perhaps with sesame but very sweet and chewy, for 324 yen. I prefer the Bostock, but I wanted to try this.

So, I'm thinking maybe I'll give up on cake shops outside Tokyo. I'm past the point of needing to go to new cake shops every time and I'd rather find nice paths for running than visit every shop within range. There's plenty that I've been to before that I haven't blogged about, and I can set other destinations and then visit, on the way or on the way back, whatever cake shop is convenient. Since I have a place 30 km out within Tokyo that I want to visit, I won't need to change my habits soon.

90 min with interval training to Dalloyau: Fromage Cru

A New York Times article popped up on my Facebook newsfeed:

It felt too humid to up my speed at first, but I managed to do a five-interval set (about 5 minutes, so not a big deal), but continued my regular run because I needed to visit Dalloyau to update my previous post. They were out of that cake, but they conveniently save the little cards so that you can see what they are sold out of (27 cards total, but some are probably not cake). The intervals definitely wore me out, but it's a good idea. You're suppose to count 30 s, 20 s, 10 s for slow, fast, max, but it's hard to count against the pace, so it was not very exact. I'd rather have a watch that beeped or vibrated according to a chosen pattern, not for first time.

Today, I got the Fromage Cru, which is only 486 yen, as it's a little thing. It's just rare cheese cake made of cream cheese and mascarpone cheese as a mousse. I hadn't gotten it previously, because I expected it to be boring, which it was, but it is also excellent, so I don't really regret it. I'm still debating with myself whether to go to a certain famous cafe and getting take-out NY-style cheese cake (I might also be debating the weather, since I'm busy early morning, so it will have to be around noon), since that and apple pie are what they are famous for (and I went once after having not good cheese cake from Shun's, so I got the apple pie then). It might be interesting to compare with today's. 

That's twice to Dalloyau this week, so I won't go back next week. Besides things I've had before, this time had their chocolate tart and some cream puffs (round and cubic, which I can't really see the advantage of and they cost double), so I'm not finished with sampling everything there yet.