Frédéric Cassel: P'tite Merveille Caramel,

Took a long run along the Tokyo History and Culture courses, starting with the Gaien Walk of the Shinjuku course and continuing on along the Outer Moat Walk to Akasaka, from which I followed the Akasaka Sanno Walk to where it meets the Marunouchi Past and Present Walk, which I jumped off to transfer to the Sukiyabashi Walk to Ginza. Total, that's about 9 km at nearly 9 km/h.

At Frédéric Cassel at Ginza Mitsukoshi, I got the P'tite Merveille Caramel (according to a French Facebook post) for 648 yen. The bottom is merigue, on top of which is caramel mascarpone cheese cream, then mango and passion fruit. topped by "biscuit-like" caramel type chocolate. It's very good, and not like most cakes, so I'm going to say it's great. Maybe I'll get tired of it if they do another version next month (didn't get to last month's yuzu version), for for now that will be my choice.





The end of the run was just 3.4 to grocer, and was a slower 8 km/h, as I was tired at the beginning.

Not sure when I'll get my next run in, as I'm busy this weekend. Probably something Sunday night, but I hope to get cake before then.

A la Bonne Heure: Chocolat Chocolat

Took a chance, in the sense of worrying about my knee, and ran again today. Did a lap around Akasaka Palace again, only this time I stopped at Shirotae, where there was a line out the door (there's not a lot of space in there, even for a Tokyo Patisserie), so they are doing okay without my patronage. Instead, I went to A la Bonne Heure (where there were three other customers) and got their Chocolat Chocolat (486 yen) cake.

What can I say: it tasted just like it looks like it should, light and fluffy, highly diluted chocolate (by cream and air). I'd rather just have the chocolate and cream: at least then I could make some ganache, although it was probably milk chocolate to begin with, so maybe just each the chocolate and whipped the cream as topping for brownies, which I need to make tomorrow. Actually, I'd rather just have dinner and skip the cake, but, still, it was not worse than you would expect, so I'll call it marginally "good". It's a standard cake, so it was useful as a reference and I've had worse too many times.

The running was fine except it started raining lightly and I forgot to stick my umbrella back in my backpack after taking to work at lunch time (though I wouldn't have used it unless I had waited for cake at Shirotae). Also, haven't put my jacket back in since washing it, and I might have used that for the hood. I did have extra shirt, but didn't use it, so it wasn't that cold, around 12 degC. Total distance it was 7.2 km at around 8 km/h again and it involved four stair-climbs over pedestrian bridges and the same slopes as yesterday.

Homemade: 6 km around Akasaka Palace

Received food gift

Food-gifting escalated this week. It had started last spring with a simple scone/canelé encounter but a mini-macaron got out of my control and the return of a meringue-like almond cookie (but not sweet) and some sort of spice bread (banana?) forced me to retaliate with 4 mini-canelé. I'm hoping for a truce now, although there are rumors of another front opening around Christmas with a stollen attack. (I'm happy to try a new dessert.)

On the running front, had a scare yesterday with my knee. Not a good day, but woke up okay. Didn't decide until the last minute whether to run and still wasn't sure at the beginning and end whether that was a good idea (but the middle seemed okay). Just over 6 km, including the Akasaka Palace loop, all just under 8 km/h average (although with overpass stairs and more slopes than usual).

I've still got around 10 mini-canelé, but I should try to improve my carob brownies to make them less brick-like, such as reducing the carob a little, increasing the butter, and cooking a little less. Also, less mixing.

Mandarin Oriental Tokyo ("Gourmet Shop"): Orange Chocolate

Decided I should rest my knee, so not running, but still wanted to try the "Gourmet Shop" by Mandarin Oriental Tokyo cake from Isetan. I got the Orange Chocolat (756 yen). The orange is not very strong and it's a very light milky chocolate, whereas I prefer something heavier and stronger, but I can't deny that this is high quality, and the hazelnut, including the cake base, is appreciated, so I'll label it excellent, because it's definitely above average and I should try something else from them.

Dalloyau: Jack O' Lantern

Went to Dalloyau in Ginza again, but, never learning, did not choose well. I got the Jack O' Lantern (540 yen). It is supposed to be kabocha cream, but at most I tasted butter, but good butter. However, I'm not out looking for cake that is just good. So even in the case of great shops, my first choice shouldn't be the novelty cake.

In terms of rank, this doesn't change how I feel about Dalloyau, but I'm moving them from the bottom "Great shop" to the top "Near-great shop". This means I can step up completing my sampling of cakes of great shops. Reviewing, my top nine patisserie-level shops for cake, in order, are (Great) Jean-Paul Hévin, Henri le Roux, Frédéric Cassel, (Near-great) Dalloyau, Paris S'éveille, Pierre Hermé, Sadaharu Aoki, Viron, and Aux Bon Vieux Temps. I also have 24 shops I rate as at least tentatively "excellent" and I don't know how many at least tentatively "good" shops, but many more than that (most of which I probably nave not posted on yet, but are on the map).

In running news, my knee seems not bad, but just in case I didn't run very fast today, staying just within the range of 8 km/h for the total 11.8 km I ran. The extra length this time came from following the Gaien Walk for the first part, though this is still only 0.9 km longer than Oct. 16 (to Viron), which was faster, but I lost some distance from deciding to be less obnoxious by not running within Ginza. My weekly budget expanded today, based on hitting 39.2 km of 9 km/h running last Sunday. I added a little to that the next day, so as of tomorrow, my budget will be 47 km, whereas I'm only at 41 km now. Think I'll do some laps tomorrow rather than rest and see whether I can still do at least 300 m stretches at 10 km/h without problems. That will give me a chance to see if the Isetan visitor now is worth visiting/adding to the map (usually, I add no matter what, but I don't need every hotel with a patisserie counter, since I've yet to find any worth bothering with, as far as their in-house stuff.

L'Essentielle: Citron Praliné

Jogged up to L'Essentielle for the first time.

I passed Porte Bonheur, which was closed again, so I'm doubting the Kasuga/Myougadani branch is ever open these days. Fortunately, L'Essentielle was. I got the Citron Praliné for 500 yen and ate in at the outside table (which was a little windy today). It's a nice little place with several tables inside, as well. There were a couple other people eating in inside, which is not a lot around 1 pm on a Saturday, but is still a good sign. The cakes are properly fancy cake, that is, for adults. This was was lemon cream and praliné. Actually, the praliné was fairly crystalline, so it was like there was an layer of crushed ice, being basically dry rather than a paste or crunchy from lots pieces versus powder, but it did not really affect the over all texture of the cake, since it's not a thick layer. The cake was definitely good, so I wouldn't mind going there again, but not particularly special to make going there a priority.

The run was okay. Last post's suggestion that I needed to move to 11 km/h for my training runs was premature. My overly fast running Thursday night left one knee sore the next day, which came back a little bit at the end of today's run. So I tried to keep it slower, on the high side of 8 km/h going out and the low side of 9 km/h coming back. Total, it was about 10 km. I had planned to go farther tomorrow, but I'll see how my knee is.

I did make carob brownies yesterday, and had another today with lunch. Also definitely good.

Ginza run to Frédéric Cassel: Saint Honoré Citron-Bergamote

Was running fast at the beginning, so ran less than I planned to keep with my budget through Saturday. Specifically, I was running about 10 km/h the first 3 km, so I'm going to have to up my speed for my training runs to 11 km/h. After that, I was definitely around 9 km/h, but I went underground early in Ginza (you can't run very fast in Ginza crowds, anyway), and didn't pick up the return run until the far corner of Hibiya Park, and that was just 3.4 km at about 8 km/h to the market.

At Ginza, I got the Saint Honoré Citron-Bergamote, or maybe it was just called Saint Honoré Bergamote (didn't have my pen, and they don't let you take pictures), like on a promotional picture on their Facebook page (the Frédéric Cassel Fontainebleau one, not the one in Japanese). Anyway, it's 756 yen, as usual, and the cream is lemon and the confit and candy coating (it's hard, though the card said "gel" I thought, although maybe there's some in the balls) are bergamot orange. Thanks to the coating, the balls are hard/crispy, at least on top, which is a clever way to keep them from getting soggy, so I had to eat them them whole, which is not a problem. The base is also crispier than a typical tart base, so maybe it's choux pastry too. Excellent recovery from last week's disappointment. Next visit to Ginza, I should go to Dalloyau, which was my backup today (there's a Dalloyau counter facing the Frédéric Cassel counter in Ginza Mitsukoshi, but they don't have cake, so you have to go to their main store).

Next run is Saturday, and I'll try again to go to a new place. This time, I've got two lined up, so one of them should be open on a Saturday (or I'll go to Isetan: I'm interesting in the visiting shop). Might have a problem with rain, though.