Today I did hills. Yesterday, I just did not want to move and wondered why I run at the beginning, which went away after less than 2 km. Today the knees were sore from the beginning, but got fine pretty quick. I ran through the regular neighborhood ringed by Yotsu Sanchome, Yotsu, Akasakamitsuke, and Shinanomachi stations. Instead trying to add hills, I just did some loops to use the ones I like more. Seemed to work.
Went to
Libertable for cake. Despite being right on my usual path, I've only got cake there twice before. Both times, it was high-quality cake that I never want to have again. The first was Luxe, which is chocolate mousse with black truffles; very interesting, and I'm not sorry that I tried it, but it's not for me. The second was Robuste, with is a disk on edge, with hazelnut praline, chocolate, and almond, but the banana and passion fruit inside did not really do it for me (bananas are for breakfast to me, not for my cake, although I've got my eye on a rum, banana, custard tart recipe). This time I was going for the Zenith, figuring if I didn't like that, then I'd call it quits for them (although it's been at least a year anyway). That was not there at 8:30 or so; they are open until 9 pm, which is great, and they had multiple customers in front of me and a lot of people were coming down from the big, obvious rich shrine across the street, whose well-lit, tall, high-quality stone stairs I selfishly ran up and down a couple times, though mostly by the side paths, not the main stairs which bridges a road and has an escalator beside it, though I don't know why. Is there a beer hall up there? It was mostly guys in suits, although since the other side is government buildings, maybe there's a path that's more convenient than walking around.
What I actually got was this:
which is chocolate mousse, raspberry ganache, and lychee cream, called Dahlia (ダリア), which I think is 669 yen. The outer fruit coating is about the right consistency, not too sticky and the inside lychee cream, though lacking a distinct taste, balances the mousse. This was not wow-this-is-great good, but well balanced and excellent quality. Still not sure whether Libertable is a great cake shop, but it's in the running. It's got the ambiance and prices, and it is convenient enough that I'll try again..
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Took a run to P. & café Limevert via Fraoula (no luck again on the cake I want), getting off course very soon out of Fraoula, which was standard all day, although I wasn't trying very hard to stay on course coming back, just letting the crossing signal dictate changes. We're in sakurayuki ("cherry snow") by now, but I wasn't running through the famous places and it's just a little misty, so didn't have any problems with crowds, even though I was running noon to 4 pm.
The cake was Chocolate Framboise and was pretty standard, with raspberry ganache between layers of moist (from the ganache, but maybe some liquor; I didn't read the card beyond the name, but something I looked at had alcohol and I think it was this) chocolate sponge cake. It was definitely good and I like chocolate a lot and raspberry, but I guess this standard cake doesn't really work that well for me. I'm not sure what I want instead. Maybe a raspberry chocolate tart (that is, something that looses the sponge cake). Still a quite excellent shop that needs another visit soon, though I also need to get to Abricotier and Yu Sasage, as weekend priorities. Maybe I can manage Abricotier in two weeks, since it's the nearest and I want to do a 50 km run the next day, including a visit to a new History and Culture course (three more to do, I think).
