En Vedette, Fragola

Monday or Tuesday (can't remember which), I took advantage of the fact that, during the week, the food floors kept their regular hours, so I could go after work for another new cake from En Vedette, which is heading for promotion. I've run through most of their line-up, so I went for the shape cake this time, Fragola (which is Italian for strawberry). The outside is white chocolate and the inside is lemon cream and strawberry jelly. The cake provides some texture variation, but I think it needs something more on that front. It's good, but weak for me, maybe because I'm not a big strawberry fan.

Cake-off: Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Vanille over Jean-Paul Hévin's Matcha

The (previous) cake-off of the week was sourced in the morning, and it's been too long since to remember what the running was, but I'm sure there was a lot of it, working on revised loops and clumps of loops. Jean-Paul Hévin's Matcha, which was one and one coming into a third cake-off, had just entered the line-up. I matched it up against Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Vanille just because it was convenient and I was not sure how easy it would be to get to other shops. I had forgotten that Matcha had gotten a warning the previous time around. This time too, I couldn't really remember why I singled out this cake. It's definitely at least good, but I didn't think the fruit, chocolate, and chocolate were harmonizing that well. I'd rather jettison the fruit, which seems. Pierre Hermé's Tarte Infiniment Vanille remained reliably great, so it picks up a second win and should get a fourth round this year.

Noix de Beurre, Strawberry Tartelette

Looking for a shop to replace Juliet 14 in the exceptional shop list, last Sunday I got the Strawberry Tartelette from Noix de Beurre at Isetan. I have to say, people in that line didn't really have the concepts of pandemic and social distancing down as well as I would have liked. Noix de Beurre is the house brand and they make basic things from basic ingredients, so I shouldn't be surprised that this was a basic tart, though good.  Note that I was catching up from the previous week, as I also did a cake-off the same day (with the expectation that the next week would involve cake that I would like, due to long work hours and short shop hours).

Higuma Doughnuts x Coffee Wrights: Cinnamon & Sugar Doughnut

Sunday morning, I went around Jinguumae on the way to some neighborhood running course loop (I think the Jinguumae 5&6), to try to complete my visits to all the food sites I put on the Jinguumae Kita-Aoyama north loop. The first thing I ate was a cake-shi (but soft/fresh/fluffy) one from Burnside Street Cafe/B Portland Cafe. It was excellent, as a fresh doughnut, but only because they heat up a plain one or fry on the spot and add the topping, so it's a restaurant, and not really a running stop (took a few minutes). I get to check them off as visited, but now I know that I didn't need to.

Actually, on the way, I stopped at what I thought would be (and might still be named) Tournage in Jinguumae 2 (versus their east shop), but I was informed that actually the shop was now an organic cafe and this was their first day with new staff. This seems to be Sunday Co-bo Kafe, so I guess just a Sunday thing and maybe I didn't get or understand the full explanation. They had soup, so it's not just baked goods. I went, not because I've never had anything from them, but because I'd never had a fresh pastry from them, but the new version didn't have pastries. They were nice though, so I bought a strawberry jam based yeast cake (basically, a coffee-cake), which was definitely good. (It didn't have a card, so I don't have a name, as they just described it rather than claiming a name.) Hope it works out for them, despite their terrible timing to open a cafe (but they can sell takeout).

The other new shop I visited was Higuma Doughnuts x Coffee Wrights. This place does count as a running site, because the donuts are already made and kept warm. I got the Sugar & Cinnamon Doughnut. It was good as a doughnut, but this was a yeast doughnut that squished to nothing when you bit into it, though I guess that's really the best a yeast doughnut is going to do.

Jean-Paul Hévin: Tartelette Soufflé Chocolat Pablino

Friday, which was a non-running day, and also non-cake, we went to the Kihachi restaurant (as a second choice) and ordered with a dessert course. I went with the regular Kihachi Napoleon Pie (whipped cream, strawberry, a little custard, and puff pastry), as an upgrade. Note, staff are all masked, of course, we sat a "bar" (actually one side of a big wooden table), so we were actually relatively separated from most people, though of course there was another couple on one side.

This was versus the upgrade course menu which included a dessert platter. I guess the Match Tiramisu is actual cake, but just yogurt and fruit was the best for me sampled from this selection.

Saturday, when there was running in the evening, included a visit to Jean-Paul Hévin, where we tried two café desserts which they claimed just started, though I had seen one before, the Tartelette Soufflé Chocolat Pablino, which is a great café dessert, for those who like chocolate cake at least. The filling is chocolate and orange sauce.

The other dessert was also good, just I'm not that into ice cream, even if I like macaron and the sauce. It was definitely good ice cream, of course. The name of the dessert is Gâteaux à la Minute, according to the menu, but I'm going to ignore than an make it Gâteau à la Minute, as in instant cake, I think, though I'm not counting it was cake.

Sadaharu Aoki, Florentin Chocolat

Last week, no more cake Tuesday to Thursday, but I kept running, mostly working on revising the Jinguumae, specially the area north of Omote-Sandou, where I ultimately had to combined the new loop with the main loop (which had already absorbed two other smaller adjacent loop in the previous revision). One new shop on the route is Comebuytea, which I hadn't realized until now wasn't even on my map (and not on Google map yet, as it just opened). I don't know how the tea is (uses a machine like a coffee maker, apparently, so presumably it's fast), but they have some good packaged snacks (as found in the best convenience stores), though they had a display for this tart that hid that it was packaged. I've had this brand and size before from a grocery store, though the packaging is slightly different. Still, it seems to be a good brand. I could have gone for the muffin for about 500 yen, but I'm not sure who makes that anyway; it at least looked more local.

I also found a buffet sweets place (so a curiosity, but not somewhere I would go), Maison Able Cafe Ron Ron. Earlier, I did get to Isetan again, surprisingly, but En Vedette was already gone. Actually the Ma Patisserie is closing down at Isetan as of today, though there is still the other rotating sweets shop and a shop I'm interested in comes at the end of the month, so I'll see whether they sell cake. I got useful information on JPH's line-up, which I took advantage of later, but for Wednesday, what I got was a Gâteaux Sec (baked sweet): Florentin Chocolat, which was excellent. I should get the plain one.

En Vedette, Mont-blanc

Monday of last week, I had lunch at Isetan and could make buy cake in the middle of the day on a workday (and in fact would be the only such cake during the week). En Vedette was visiting, so I took advantage of the opportunity to buy their Mont-blanc. This is the usual whipped cream under chestnut paste arranged horizontally between two meringue disks, which makes for a high meringue to cream and chestnut, and a rather sweet cake, which suits me, especially for something that get verge on bitter like chestnut. In fact, I want to have it again, which is another way of saying that it was great. This puts En Vedette on a path to challenge the category above, quite exceptional shops, though this third great cake probably isn't going to be enough to take it all the way, even if it stands up under testing.