Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Inspiration Passion Framboise over Toshi Yoroizuka's Cassis

Friday, I had a long run, starting by running down to east Nishi-Azabu again to do loops of my neighborhood course and swinging up through Moto-Akasaka, which is at least somewhat on the way back. I could do three small loops, finishing them, but failed on the two largest due to not recognizing a narrow road or path that I needed to turn on. Skipping ahead in the story, I went back by bicycle and ran those Saturday afternoon (it was hotter than I had hoped but apparently manageable). I also finally managed clockwise on the Dougenzaka north loop, after cycling over to Shibuya Hikari but failed on completing the adjacent loop and two other simple loops I tried for the first time. I'll see what I can do Sunday night.

Friday, as my first snack, I tried a Pain au Chocolat from Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, which is my first pastry. It suffered a little from the late time/humidity/my sweaty condition, but it was made the way I like it and I liked the chocolate (which I often don't in these), so I'm going to call it excellent and maybe get another one.


Saturday, I did a third-round cake-off with Frédéric Cassel's Inspiration Passion Framboise, even though it was its last day and it will probably never appear again. I started by running to the Kyobashi Toshi Yoroizuka to the Cassis, which was the nearest cake that was a suitable match. The Cassis, besides as the name indicates, is maybe the best fig cake I know, but that was not enough (though it complimented) against the stronger flavor of Inspiration Passion Framboise. The next "Inspiration" cake with be pecans, which sounds good, though I have other places to visit, so I'm probably not going to get to it right away.

Pascal Le Gac, Tarte Chocolat

Was late getting started, but ran down to Pascal Le Gac for a third cake. On the way there and back, I successfully ran three loops of my neighborhood running course, completing the (trivial, in terms of knowledge) Moto-Akazaka west loop (Akasaka Palace running course). I was getting a third cake from this shop and choose the Tarte Chocolat. This is definitely excellent, for a chocolate lover, so this shop stays in the still crowded quite fine shop group. The negative point is this tart is tiny, so a bit pricy for cake, but if you consider what bonbon chocolates cost, not unreasonable. Still two more two-cake quite fine shops to go, so I should finish them off around mid-September.

Fiorentina Pastry Boutique, Peach Shortcake

Decided that I didn't want to run to Ginza again (like Tuesday) and instead ran to Roppongi Hills again (like the previous few days). It's not such a far run but I did do four 1-min dashes on the way and ran most of the way back. I went to visit Fiorentina Pastry Boutique at Roppongi Hills, which is the pastry shop for Grand Hyatt Tokyo. My justification was that FC was 2 cakes down out of 48, whereas one exceptional shop was 2 cakes down out of 6, so they should be the priority, but the latter was below Fiorentina, so first I had to resolve where Fiorentina belonged. Unfortunately, though Fiorentina are open fairly late, they don't have a big selection late, so my choices for a fifth cake were between three kinds of shortcakes and a couple verrines, so I went with a shortcake. I chose a slight upgrade from the basic model and got the Peach Shortcake. There's also a high-end shortcake for more than double again the price, but I would want to share that. By virtue of a slight detour on the way back, I completed the new Nishi-Azabu northeast loop clockwise, so I should be able when I finished it off with the larger loops on the other side of the main street that I've been working on, hopefully Friday.

The shortcake was typical in structure, but peach was an excellent choice and I have to admit that it was excellent, which I was not expecting, given my preference for heavy cakes. This balance of cake, cream, and fruit was much more to my liking than last night's, but still it was the fruit as central. This puts this shop squarely above at least one exceptional shop with the same number of cakes, so it gets moved up and Bubó Barcelona gets moved down to the quite fine group, perhaps never to be visited again for cake, though it's solidly a fine shop. Still at least two more challengers from the quite fine group to go before these two groups are properly separated, though now that Lenôtre is settled, I can visit a completely new shop. Before that, I think I'll work on the two-cake quite fine shops tomorrow.

Lenôtre, Éclair Gourmand Orange

Monday was a no-cake day, so I'll deal with that first. I wanted to rest somewhat from running, so first I did my basic indoor trunk workout and then went by bicycle down to Roppongi Hills to run some loops. I was successful on all four this time (from practice), which means I completed two easy ones and finally got clockwise on two others. Along the way, I found a shop specializing in scone and cheesecake, Happy Day for You, so I finally have a reason to make a loop in the northeast sector of Nishi-Azabu.

Tuesday, I went to Ginza to get another cake from Lenôtre, since it is now in the exceptional shop group and needs to more cakes to catch up and also is challenging the bottom of the quite exceptional shop group, so it's a priority. I did the running without walking, except for when the light was red, and did dashes between 4 minutes of running, so I got in a little more than four 1-min high-speed stretches. I ran back rather than walk the whole way, but didn't do any dashes. The rain started falling lightly a little more than 1 km out, but I could protect my cake. For the cake, I choose one of two open-face éclair, which I figured I should try. I went with Éclair Gourmand Orange (versus citron). The fruit is high quality, but overall it's not too exciting, despite the price. I need a lot more with my fruit. Lenôtre is still down 1 cake, and their great cakes haven't finished this year's cake-off challenges, so I expect more cake in the near future, but they are no longer a top priority and I'll go somewhere different next week.

Y par Potager, Komatsuna and Moringa Cheesecake

Working through the 2-cake quite fine shop list, I got to the last of the non-workday ones, Y par Potager (at the Nakameguro location, formerly Potager, though now in a new looking school). It's hot to run during the day, so I went by bicycle, which also allowed me to check a couple sites on the way to looking in on BE and DA to check lineups for great cakes (without any luck).

Since it was recommend out front, I went with the Komatsuna and Moringa Cheesecake at Y par Potager. Komatsuna is Japanese mustard spinach and moringa is a "superfood", though it's a tree, so I'm not sure what part they used, the leaves or the pods. It's not really suitable for Japan, since it prefers try soil. The cheesecake tasted like good cheese cake flavored with greens. Nothing wrong with that, but not something I particular need to look for, as I prefer sweets. The label shown indicates under 5 g carbs. So this shop gets banish to the fine list, probably never to be visited again. Three more 2-cake shops from the quite fine list to go.

In the late afternoon/evening, I went down to the area south of Roppongi Hills stretching down past Hiroo Station. For the main target, the Nishi-Azabu--Minami-Azabu loop, I failed again at the same second traffic signal bypass (although that bypass also serves to pass the entrance of Amida-ji, which is on a narrow lane). I kept going anyway and feel a lot more confident about the rest of the loop now. On the way, I tried two loops to the east of it and was able to do both of them correctly. The only problem is, reviewing the maps, the first one left out a temple, and looking for a way to correct that loop, I also found a church I had missed, so I'm moving the section with those sites over to a different loop. At least the Moto-Azabu south loop seems stable, and I was able to do clockwise without getting sucked into a dead end. I failed the Roppongi 6 north loop clockwise (wasn't sure how far south I needed to go after where I use a crosswalk to get over a major street), but at least the Roppongi 4 loop is finished, all 243 m of it.

Cake-off: Frédéric Cassel's Inspiration Passion Framboise over Ladurée's Plaisir Sucré

After a morning appointment, I ran to Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi to pick something up and then walked down to Ginza Mitsukoshi to get Frédéric Cassel's Inspiration Passion Framboise and Ladurée's Plaisir Sucré. This was a second-round cake-off, where the former is just for this month (barring leftovers, maybe) and the later is the earliest of the round-one winners waiting for a second round. I brought them back by train.

As expected, paired against the sweet Plaisir Sucré, Inspiration Passion Framboise did not seem sour. It is tough to decided between these two, but I'll go with the more diverse (among my greats list) Inspiration Passion Framboise, so I remain two cakes behind on Frédéric Cassel. In any case, I'm two cakes behind on Ladurée, as I have been for a while, but that's because there are challengers from the category below (Ladurée is grouped with exceptional shops) that I need to sort out first, though Ladurée isn't lowest among the exceptional shops, so it won't be next to be demoted to make room for a new shop.

The main running was in the evening, and the main target was Nishi-Azabu--Minami-Azabu loop, but there are some tricky old and new turns that I don't know well enough, so I was quickly running just for practice. Similarly, I tried to run the Moto-Azabu--Roppongi loop, which has a double back and couple crossovers using footpaths, so ultimately, I see that even my practice was not correct (I ran way to far, around Roppongi High School). Also, there was a street festival (which showed up on Google maps), so I'll want to check for that if I try the same location tomorrow. On the other hands, I noticed St Moritz as a bread shop at the from turn from the main east leg of the loop. I also did the Moto-Azabu loop correctly clockwise, which is a 1.1 km loop with just three sites (two temples and park), but it's on some back streets where where I needed to turn to keep from getting sucked into a dead end. I also missed a jog to the right one block before getting back to the main street. Though trivial, I could do the Roppongi 6 north loop (794 m) and Roppongi 4 loop (243 m) clockwise, so I'll be able to get those out of the way, though the former is just one loop in a chain of little loops clumped with the Nishi-Azabu--Minami Azabu loop, so I might end up jogging along it one way more times.

Pierre Marcolini, Éclair Vanille

Thursday, I did a lot of food shopping errands, starting with visiting Pierre Marcolini, which had four éclairs I haven't tried. Since it will probably be a long time before I'm back and finding something great that's about to disappear would be less useful, I went with one of the two standards rather than the seasonal ones, and got Éclair Vanille. The filling is vanilla, but obviously there is some red fruit on top. This is one of the quite fine shops that I've only had two cakes from and I decided that this éclair was excellent, so they stay on that list. This is despite the crust not seeming to be the traditional choux pastry, but was rather soft. Maybe I'm influenced by the high-end atmosphere, but in any case, this remains as some place that I would like to visit again. Actually, I'd like to visit the salon and get one of their salon deserts, but like the éclairs, everything is about double what you would except from an ordinary shop, though they are not trying to be ordinary. I think eventually I'll do it, but it might not be until October. Interesting trivia: if you pay by cash, they round down to multiples of 10 yen.

I'll include Friday here, since no food is involved: I went for a long run that took about 3 hours, though I walked on stairs and crowded places, so maybe close to 2 hours actual running. The balance was good, and I was still running well at the end and am ready to run again on Saturday, though there was a lot of stretching between. Back to the trivial details for Friday. I did the recently altered Jinguumae--Kita-Aoyama south loop counterclockwise, so that route is confirmed. The main goal was to do counterclockwise the Daikanyama-chou--Ebisunishi--hachiyama-chou--Nanapeidai-chou--Shibuya--Uguisudani-chou loop, which is 9.75 km long and has a lot of stairs and slopes (as well as churches as sites). Along the way, I first confirmed the current (until the construction on the southeast corner is finished) updated Dougenzaka south loop (1.1 km), but later failed trying to do the Maruyama-chou--Shinsen-chou loop (I did the first turn at the correct intersection, but onto the wrong street (it's a five-way intersection). I didn't try to do connecting Dougenzaka north loop. I'm going to call the main Daikanyama... loop a success. Actually, I turned early at the end, but it was dark and a long run and I could immediately see that it was wrong (and the reason for not turning there is not that important), so I'm not going to ding myself for it, or I can never do long runs in the dark. So I'm done with that area for now, and I'll move over to in front of and south of Roppongi Hills for the run Saturday afternoon, where I've really only run a little bit, though I've previously done runs to officially add those loops to the neighborhood course, while consulting a map.