Cake-off: Cacao Store (Théobroma)'s San Juaquin Dos over Viron's Bonaparte

After more than two years, visiting Viron looking for previous great cakes finally paid off Friday, when I say that Bonaparte was brought back. I rate this as great but never did a cake-off, so that became the new priority. Prior to that, there was actually running, in the form of a one-way neighborhood run that got as far as revisiting both the Minami-Aoyama--Nishi-Azubu loop (which goes past Esola the Lab, where I got black cheesecake recently) and the connected Nishi-Azuba Northwest loop, which goes by the temple Choukoku-ji, as the main landmark, and is a neighborhood in which I've seen people out waking their (full-sized) pig on a leash a couple times. Note counting stops for stretches, it took about 68 minutes, after which I walked home. No cake or pastry, as I was banking them for the weekend.

Saturday, I did a cake-off, cycling, again resting my feet where I could. I stopped to take a few photos of, for example the entrance (since there seemed to be a guard and it's very private looking) to Central Tokyo Church of Perfect Liberty, which is a Japanese "new religious movement", started by a Zen Buddhist priest.

Viron opens early, so I went there first, choosing the Shibuya location because it aligned with my initial photography goals, and got Bonaparte, which is a chocolate cake flavored with prune. I took it home, did some other shopping, and then went out to Bien-être, where I found that they had canceled business, presumably because they were not finished with their renovations. My back up was Cacao Store, very close, where I got San Juaquin Dos (actually by Théobroma, like all their cakes), which is straight chocolate cake, pretty much, and their star attraction, seems like.

Both of these cakes involve, well, more cake than my usual choices: no caramel, mousse, cream, crunch, or nuts. My first reaction was, is just cake really great? But they convinced me of their merits over time. Initially, Viron had the edge, with its extra interesting flavor, but the Cacao Store chocolate cake, with its thick layers of ganache, won me over by the end. Next time a trip to Bien-être for a new cake fails, I know where to go.

In the afternoon, I went out again by bicycle for additional exercise and photos, covering the rest of a hatagaya--Honmachi loop for a neighborhood course (and finding a few flaws that needed fixing), as well as the rest of the north side of the Hatagaya--Motoyoyogichou--Nishihara--Tomigaya--Uehara loop, though one shrine was closed, so I would like to go back.

Lots of seasonal cakes appeared in September in the top shops, but I'm not going to sweat it, and just take them in order (of my original evaluations), so I hope that JPH's chocolate tart sticks around for October, so I can get it for a second-round cake-off.

Presqu'île Chocolaterie, Mure

Still having trouble with foot pain, so I took off yesterday and did some upper body work, which I should do more often (hopefully I will). Today, I took a half-day off work and went cycling up to Kichijouji to visit Presqu'île Chocolaterie (versus one other their other operations, like wine making), which is a quite good shop that rates higher than some of my excellent shops, so I wanted to resolve the discrepancy, despite those shops outside the top couple dozen being a pretty low priority, so I haven't done anything about it for months. (On the way, I also confirmed that Aigre-Douce still doesn't have a cake I've been looking for about 3 years).

I went for Mure (I'm updating with the 2020 website spelling), which is a chocolate and mulberry cake, though the decoration seems to be a relative of the blueberry. I didn't trust the cake to survive the road trip back, due to vibration, but melting may have been a bigger problem, as there was less ice inside a not so small box than I expected. In either case, I ate it in a little park within a couple kilometers, which was not optimal (mosquito repellent was necessary, which I had). This was definitely good. Now I'm curious how mulberry would go with a darker chocolate, but I don't see that flavor usually, so now I'm going to be looking for that. Now that Presqu'île Chocolaterie is firmly in the quite good group, I can deal with other overlaps. Right now, along with Très Calme, Hidemi and Del'Immo stand out among quite good shops, so maybe I demoted them too soon.

Frédéric Cassel, Choux Cassis

Was windy today, due to a typhoon passing to the west, enough to stop some train lines. No rain in the evening though, so it was mostly fine for running. I imagine most running groups cancelled early, so there were not many people out on the moat course. Saw one tree had broken off and was floating in the moat to the east and someone official looking was inspecting the trunk when I reached it near Hibiya intersection.

Went back to Ginza Mitsukoshi by the scenic route (not so much as a plan, but I just missed the first traffic light, which is followed by a second traffic light that you can't make at any reasonable speed, so I turned and went down to Aoyama-doori Avenue, which adds more than 1 km, I think (especially if you start by trying to go the opposite direction). I walked from the big Ginza scramble (Sukiyabashi), but it was still about 75 min or running total round-trip, plus walking underground from there, as Marunouchi Line Ginza Station ti Ginza Mitsukoshi and then to Viron by the zigzag underground route.

For cake, I got Choux Cassis from Frédéric Cassel, which is the first time I've gotten this inspiration cake, one of three lately, along with a cheese charlotte and a tart. I would have been happy with this month's tart, which is blueberry, but wanted to finally try the cream puff, even though I've never liked cream puffs with whipped cream or fruit or any flavor of custard but vanille. However, the custard in this was a really rich dark red from the cassis/currant. It has a very strong fruit taste without being very sweet at all. And there was no feeling of a mismatch having the cassis whipped cream. I ate it in the 9th floor open area, since I figured it would be hard to carry home on foot due to wind. I still found that I really prefer cutting the pastry with a sharp knife versus my teeth, but it was still excellent and I look forward to trying other version in the future.

Jean-Paul Hévin: La Figue

Took two months this time, but the JPH line-up has changed, bringing back a few old favorites (like the one in yesterday's cake-off) and one new cake: La Figue. I was willing to take a couple tries, since my aim is only three pieces of cake for weekdays, so I wasn't devastated that La Figue (and maybe all the cakes new to the line-up) were sold out at Isetan. I did however change my plan to do a neighborhood run and instead tried Ginza Mitsukoshi, where I also had a back-up in F. Cassel. But I didn't need it: they were not sold out (not as busy a place as Isetan, so I was not surprised). Hope they still have the F. Cassel cakes tomorrow when I go, but I can try again Wednesday and Friday (long shot) if not. Ran both ways with no stops except to walk underground from the Ginza scramble intersection to Mitsukoshi. Coming back, I checked in at Origines Cacao (still none of the old great cakes, nor were there any at Dalloyau, neither surprising) and then surfaced and ran back.

La Figue is a very Jean-Paul Hévin cake: crunch on the bottom, thin layers of fig, main layer of chocolate mousse and a layer of solid chocolate on top. It was dependably great, getting the right balance of fig and chocolate for me (I don't need a lot of fruit).

Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Choux Vanille over Jean-Paul Hévin's Macaron Chocolat a l'Ancienne

Started off at about 10 am for Ginza Mitsukoshi to get cakes for a first-round cake-off between Frédéric Cassel's Choux Vanille and Jean-Paul Hévin's Macaron Chocolat a l'Ancienne, which was just restored in the August line-up. Besides being available from the same department store, they are from my top two favorite shops and are both unique among my great list. As types, though they are completely opposites. This round goes to Frédéric Cassel's Choux Vanille. The simplicity and quality of the filling is key, but sugar coating of the pastry really gives this cake a nice texture as well. I really need to try one of their variations. The macaron is sort of an excuse to eat a lot of fairly solid dark chocolate, which is not a bad thing, and I like a dry chewy macaron compared to a moist one, in general.

I did about another 90 minutes of running later, taking photos to fill in/verify a bunch of locations on my local running courses, in this case on the east side, so I ended up running around the American Embassy. In the last couple years or so, they built a big commercial development across from it that has nothing much of interest to me (I'm interested in the old Austrian cake shop on the far side, though they are always closed Sundays). As part of that, there is a kind of park running through it with narrow twisty paths, so I did not notice the cop in the middle until fairly close. Not a problem, but I wonder how far he can see just standing there. Maybe it it's not that dense and you can see through well enough once you get used to it, at least from that exact spot.

Café Le Cordon Bleu: Earlgrey Chocolate, Macaron Chocolat Gianduja

Saturday, went to a new place for cake for two, which is to say I had half of each of these first two cakes, Café Le Cordon Bleu (supposedly the current name, though the old name is still on the receipt: Le Cordon Bleu La Boutique). It is close to the old Asakura Family Estate, which dates from early Showa (about a hundred years ago), which is a cheap (100 yen/person) visit. Back to the cafe, it is self-serve and has a limited selection of cake, pastries, bread, and simple cafe lunch, salad maybe. On a Saturday, they ran out of at least one of our cakes shortly after us, maybe a little before 3 pm.

Both of these are chocolate (there was also a strawberry mousse/cream and a cream puff), but are quite different. One is Earlgrey Chocolate, a fairly standard mousse cake, but definitely good. The tea gives, well a tea taste, but I would say it makes the chocolate a little fruity. The other cake is a macaron, Macaron Chocolate Gianduja, and I advised cutting it, though it turned out that picking it up was very possible, as there is a center of chopped nuts (I assume hazelnuts) in chocolate that acted as a central post while not offering resistance to biting (so it was sort of sticky rather than solid). This sort of heavy cake is more my preference, so I thought this was excellent. Based on two cakes, it seems a quite good shop, which is a fairly good find for just a local shop I noticed on my neighborhood route.

Esola: Black Cheesecake

No running Friday, but took an out of town guest with us when trying a new place, Esola in (Minami-) Aoyama. Noticed this near my neighborhood running course through the area, once I adjusted it to allow cutting through the alley/driveway at the end of this road that needs to a park on the other side. The crust/topping is bitter chocolate cookie crust (with salted butter for the bottom, at least), though I thought it was sesame for some reason. It's not very strong compared to the center, which is layers of fresh cream, rare cheese cake, and baked cheese cake, apparently. It's definitely good and definitely and a little different in a good way, like the shop.