Presqu'île Chocolaterie, Ruby

I took advantage of Presqu'île Chocolaterie being at Isetan to pick up a 4th cake from them, which is my goal for the 48 shops in my quite fine category. Ruby chocolate is still rare, and it can be great, so I went with their Ruby, though it's closest relative is probably Mure, which was my least favorite of theirs at the time. Nevertheless, it turned out well, as this was excellent, which means it will make the next cut (32 shops is the target number for this category, but just 3 cakes wasn't enough to make that fine a division). Besides being ruby chocolate with the traditional raspberry addition, the center is lychee liquor marinated grapefruit in lychee cream. It works. These days, I'm working late and doing more indoor exercises, though I still got in some running (not that I can remember now whether it was a 30-min or 45-min day).

  

Pierre Gagnaire, Mousse au Chocolat Rubis et aux Fraises

The last cake of last Thursday was from an exceptional shop that is challenging for a position in the quite exceptional shop group. They've shorted their hours to closing at 19:00, is now it requires a holiday to get there. I've had an excellent ruby chocolate cake from them previously, so I went with the Mousse au Chocolat Rubis et aux Fraises, which I ate after dinner. It was good, and maybe ruby chocolate goes better with strawberries than other forms, but I wasn't feeling that any kind of special harmony was going on.

Pierre Gagnaire: Finger Ruby Fig Framboise

I'm behind visiting exceptional cake shops as I was dealing with challengers from below (some of whom are now part of the problem with the exceptional group). This time, I went to Pierre Gagnaire, another hotel shop like yesterday's, but the best I've found. Since I've never had ruby chocolate before, I resisted the yuzu chocolate mousse and got the Finger Ruby Fig Framboise. Of course, I still don't know what ruby chocolate tastes like, just this cake, so setting aside whether ruby chocolate is essentially a chemically created hoax, fig and raspberries is not a combination I've had a lot of, so whatever ruby chocolate brings (not cacao taste, apparently), it goes with it and harmonizes this well. Or at least, the fig taste was really strong at first, and then the raspberry came to the forefront, and then it just what what it was. I also had a solidness that I liked, and stood up well to being cut into small pieces with a plastic utensil, as I braved the strong wind and ate it outside at the tables around the adjacent building to the hotel. I'm calling this cake great. Not sure when fig season ends, so this may not see it's way to a cake-off, as that isn't likely to happen any earlier than mid-October.

I ran to Pierre Gagnaire, by way of Tokyo Midtown rather than the shortest way, and after cake went and did some neighborhood run loops nearby, 3 really small loops. I also tried the new Hirakawa-chou--Kioi-chou loop, but didn't know where to turn to get to the road circling the temple to bypass the intersection next to the Prime Minister's residence. Now I should be able to remember to look for the wide stairs between the two hotels.