Sadaharu Aoki, Saint Honoré aux Fraises

On the 8th day of GW, I went to Shibuya Hikarie ShinQs and finally got the 7th anniversary (of the location) Saint Honoré aux Fraises from Sadaharu Aoki. I'm not sure what the rules are for saint-honoré cakes, but this one is heavy on strawberries an light on pastry, as well as cream and custard. It was good by not a combination of indigence that excites me. I went by bicycle, after a lot of problems with my feet from too much time on them early in GW walking around Tokyo (I rested in Kobe). Even the next day (when I'm writing) after another 20 km ride, they aren't noticeably worse than a couple months ago. I think I'll still avoid being on them more than an hour, at least until the next weekend end, and then set 2 hours as the limit.

Succession Kanditoratelier (Nishimura Coffee): Apfelstrudel& Pistazien Torte

Milk pudding

On day 7 of GW, and the last day in Kobe, I went to a Nishimura Coffee shop for lunch and got Succession Kanditoratelier deserts (I'm not sure whether these are in anyway independent or whether they are both just brands of the same company). I went for cake, but their actual cakes seem pretty perfunctory, if that's the correct word, so we went with more pastry-like torte, the Apfelstrudel (with whipped cream, which makes this pastry at least a café desert) and Pistazien Torte, basically, coffee cakes.

Apfelstrudel

The strudel was very nice, much nicer than pie. It has raisins, which seems like a traditional sweetener, and apple strudel predates sugar becoming a non-luxury, apparently. I definitely appreciate the cream, though that's pretty true for any torte. I would call this excellent.



I had the pistachio cake afterward, so it might have been too much. Certainly it was more sweet than I needed without something to cut it with, so I should have order tea. The milk pudding cake with my lunch and I didn't really want it, but it was actually good, so better than I expected.

Luciole: J'aime, Paris-Brest, & Gateau Meringue

Gateau Meringue

On day 6 of GW, I got cake from Luciole, which is a shop at the Hotel Piena in Kobe, as takeout. I don't recognize the name of the shop, though I've gotten cake from this location before, just the hotel name. Anyway, it's pretty big as a café space, since it might also be the hotel's breakfast space. However, they have a problem with takeout, in that they give you a huge box in a huge bag, which provides some stability, but the protection of the cakes within the box is completely inadequate.

Paris-Brest

There were one centimeter high paper walls to separate cakes, which did nothing to keep the tall, delicate meringue cake (above from their website) from falling over, even with fairly careful handling. I thought I told them something strange last time I ordered at that location that made them just leave the cakes loose inside (and maybe I did), but this time all the blame is on them. That said, the cake was good, better than average from places I've sampled in Kobe when I was sampling for essentially everywhere (which I don't do in Tokyo very widely these days). The Gateau Meringue was still good, but it's just meringue, white chocolate, and some berries in a decorative package. The Paris-Brest had an unusual pastry, not the usual choux pastry, but maybe the soft version used for Japanese-style choux cream. It was good, but I like a much more decadent style.

The final one, J'aime, is pistachio over chocolate. It is much airier/spongier that other dome cakes I have had, which one should guess from the air bubbles, again (like the previous day's) seemingly in keeping with a local style. It also was good and well balanced, but the texture was boringly soft.

Chocolat Republic: Rare Cheese Mont-Blanc & Raw Chocolate Mont-Blanc

On the 5th day of GW, in Kobe, I had a couple cakes from Chocolat Republic, the Raw Chocolat Mont-Blanc (according to the receipt), which I assume is the same as the Kobe Raw Chocolate Mont-Blanc that I've posted on before. It was still good, but basic, and heavy on the bottom layer of sponge cake for any kind of mont-blanc, which seems consistent with the local style, which features more sponge cake than I usually get in Tokyo. The other was Rare Cheese Mont-Blanc (notice the change in translation for nama from raw to rare). The cheese cake was definitely good, better than the chocolate, maybe because it was sweeter. This was specifically from Sogo Dept. Store, I think, though they have standalone shops.

Tully's Coffee, Cheesecake

On the third day of GW, we rest from cake shops, but I did take advantage of a visit to Tully's Coffee (not sure which branch, but maybe in Shinjuku) to try their cheesecake (since I don't drink coffee). It was definitely good, which is high praise for chain coffee shop fair. Couldn't get a picture without a shadow, but I'm not posting to Twitter anyway.

Michalak: Mont-Blanc

On the second day of GW, we got a couple cakes, one new to me, from the Michalak counter at Isetan, at my recommendation (next time is already been decided). The new cake was the Mont-Blanc, which I had most of, but am not completely sure how delicious it was, so I'm going with "great" just to get another chance at it (once I find a couple great cakes from some other shops). It's definitely the kind I like, not being very heavy. Actually, the middle seemed emptier than I expected, though the meringue broke irregularly, so maybe I just ate to greedily to notice.

Pascal Le Gac: Fondant Chocolat Naturel & Dacquoise Pistache

On the first day of the special 10-day Golden Week holiday, I went to Pascal Le Gac in Akasaka and had cake at their café. I had about 3/4 of a Fondant Chocolat Naturel (in two installments) and about 1/4 of a Dacquoise Pistache, so especially my review of the latter is based on limited information. The (plain) fondant chocolate was chocolaty good, so especially as a first cake, I'm quite good, so I should get a third cake from there as a part of my effort to sort through those.

comfortable calling it excellent. There is also a raspberry version, I think. It is small and not cheap. The other cake is one of two "dacquoise" cakes, though I can't remember what the other was, maybe hazelnuts, though the pistachio could easily have been called Dacquoise Fraise and the other was burred in exotic fruits. It seemed definitely good, and maybe not different in taste and texture in similar deserts that I may even have rated great, but I didn't have enough to get that excited by it and there was no novelty for me. These were good enough to rate the shop potentially