Under my updated patisserie hierarchy, Ryoura was the other potentially quite excellent shop I needed more samples from, besides Limevert, which I visited yesterday. Ryoura does not have a café space, so I also needed to stop somewhere for a snack in order avoid gobbling down the cake under poor outdoor conditions.
Usually I would go around Shibuya Station area (for good reasons of crowds, [decade-long] construction projects, and car-oriented roads), but I wanted to confirm that the Limevert counter at Hikarie, across from the station, does not have fresh cake, which I did, and noted that Pierre Hermé and Sadakaru Aoki both did now, so I added them to the
map.
Due to the current state of construction projects, the southeast pedestrian bridge is less direct and narrower than ever, so I regretted not using some other strategy to cross. I skipped the southwest bridge and went around, although that bridge is fairly direct, so it might have been better just to use it. Even with all that, total time to get from my start to P. Bigarreaux was 1 hour to the second, according to my chronometer, and my speed was 11 km/h for 11 km and faster than the first part of yesterday's run. There, I got the Croissant aux Almondes au Chocolate (400 yen); it was great, with both almond paste and chocolate inside, chocolate drizzled outside, and baked to be hard on the outside (some almond croissant are soft and flat compared to a regular croissant and some avoid this but have an almost deep-fried outside, so this was the latter type). It was great pasty, but what a calorie bomb, with both sugar and fat. Half would have probably been enough, but for a 23 km run, it was perfect fuel (plus I ate my normal breakfast about 1.5 hours before starting).
From there, I went the short distance to Ryoura, but I made the mistake of trying to take back streets, so not so direct. Coming back, I had to swing by Bigarreaux again because I had forgotten my other purpose there, to check whether they had either of the great cakes I had had there previously (unfortunately, not; they are big on having a rotating lineup); from there I stayed on the main road when it headed toward the north end of the Shibuya Station, where perhaps the most famous Japanese pedestrian scramble is. Too crowded, of course, and the same pretty much all the way past Omotesando. My speed was 10 km/h for 12 km, but still slightly faster than the second half of yesterday's run.
The cake was Mille-feuille Chocolat (500 yen), which seemed like a good idea in my running-addled selection state, since I like both the flavor and the type, but really chocolate and custard are both much better than chocolate custard, or at least in this realization. I'll say it was good, since the mille-feuille was good and it wasn't so bad as chocolate custard goes.
So, end of another week, where am I in terms of running and patisseries? Running, I broke 100 km for the week for the first time since restarting my training, though I was running pretty slow: I never even got up to 12 km/h, so I did only about 85 km of 12 km/h-eq. running, which is only a 5% increase from two weeks ago. My current plan for next week would have me running less than 90 km raw to reach about the same amount as 12 km/h-eq, though I'm going to have to revise that plan now that Ryoura has dropped out as next Sunday's destination.
On the Patisserie side, supreme Jean-Paul Hévin doesn't have anything new unless I'm willing to pay double+ to get unneeded chocolat chaud, which I've decided is unwarranted. Quite superb Dalloyau definitely needs a visit soon, even without it's recent win in the last cake-off. Ryoura drops out of the quite excellent group, so I moved up Bigarreaux and Toshi Yoroizuka, which I have deeper histories with, but one will eventually have to go unless Limevert fails next week. The Toshi Toshizuka will be one source for my next cake-off, though I'm not sure when I'll get to that: I probably should do another cake-less run to prepare for it, since 6 km Friday is really just half a normal run; I need to call ahead to get them to hold me a piece and then get to Isetan for the competition, so I need planning, but I don't have that much control over my day-to-day overtime work hours. Limevert is still potentially a quite excellent shop, but under-visited, so I need to get back there next weekend for a fifth cake, this time by a longer more comfortable route, say by swinging south through Aoyama Cemetery, coming back along Meguro River, and taking the green path that picks up where the above-ground river begins to get up to Umegaoka and follow the train line again. Among the excellent shops, I need a second visit to Heritage, but that requires a no-overtime day on a Monday, Tuesday, or Friday, which is going to be tough this week, and I also want a second cheesecake from Morozoff, for a training run day. Since I don't need to get back to Ryoura this weekend, I can use one weekend run for a new shop (or at least one I haven't blogged yet). If I don't manage to get to some completely new shop during the week (such as Pierre Gagnaire, which is easy but I haven't actually gotten an recommendations on it), I'll maybe finally go out to Toni Coni, which has been on my radar for a while. Otherwise, maybe Yukinoshita, just to get it off the list of places to blog about. Either would be shorter than going back to Ryoura, so I'll have room maybe to make some side visits or take a more comfortable/safe/interesting route over the most direct route.
Posts
Due to the current state of construction projects, the southeast pedestrian bridge is less direct and narrower than ever, so I regretted not using some other strategy to cross. I skipped the southwest bridge and went around, although that bridge is fairly direct, so it might have been better just to use it. Even with all that, total time to get from my start to P. Bigarreaux was 1 hour to the second, according to my chronometer, and my speed was 11 km/h for 11 km and faster than the first part of yesterday's run. There, I got the Croissant aux Almondes au Chocolate (400 yen); it was great, with both almond paste and chocolate inside, chocolate drizzled outside, and baked to be hard on the outside (some almond croissant are soft and flat compared to a regular croissant and some avoid this but have an almost deep-fried outside, so this was the latter type). It was great pasty, but what a calorie bomb, with both sugar and fat. Half would have probably been enough, but for a 23 km run, it was perfect fuel (plus I ate my normal breakfast about 1.5 hours before starting).
The cake was Mille-feuille Chocolat (500 yen), which seemed like a good idea in my running-addled selection state, since I like both the flavor and the type, but really chocolate and custard are both much better than chocolate custard, or at least in this realization. I'll say it was good, since the mille-feuille was good and it wasn't so bad as chocolate custard goes.
Today, I went to an under-visited potentially (because I've still only sampled a few cakes) quite excellent shop, Limevert, which is along the Odakyu Odawara Line, Soshigayaohkura Station, in Soshigaya, Setagaya-ku. To avoid Shibuya, I went by way of the road west from Yoyogi Station. It's about 13 km each way, which I did averaging 10 km/h, though faster out than back. They have a relatively big (several tables) café space set up, so I ate in, as you can tell from the photo.
Today's cake was from Pierre Hermé, which I decided I needed a new cake from as a "reward" from winning my first cake-off (so I'll also need an extra visit to Dalloyau for the second one): Tarte Infiniment Chocolat au Lait (648 yen). This is just a tart, of course, one having a hard tart shell with caramel in the bottom (so you have to watch out for it being squeezed out when you cut into it), a main body of solid milk chocolate with some peanut pieces, little crunchy chocolate balls, and some dark chocolate sauce to stick the top lid of chocolate on and/or keep any loose balls from escaping. For a tart, it is a little complicated but still fairly straightforward. To me, it's a great example of chocolate tart, so I hope I get a chance to compare it to other great chocolate or caramel tarts.
The cake is Damier (ダミエ; 300 yen), for the pattern. It's sponge with some buttercream and chocolate. At that price, I wasn't surprised that there was no box, much less ice. They have cake wedges and layered rectangles for not much more. It's definitely good but also definitely nothing special, just simple cake, frosting, and chocolate coating.
Made another visit to Il Pleut sur la Seine on Sunday and ate in. We got the Bouchon, which may be an eat-in only option, but was not marked so this time, and Mille-Feuille, which is eat in only. The Mille-Feuille was great, I think. The clever bit was they pre-sliced the two and middle layers, so it was easy to eat while still retaining the "leaves". The Bouchon is the standard rum-soaked sponge cake (with some sort of glaze or something on the outside which didn't affect the taste or texture directly), which I don't really get, though it was good enough I suppose. So this shop is at least excellent. However, the service was not perfect, in terms of manners in terms of the café side, though that isn't really part of the calculations.
There was running, but not until Monday, which I took off. I've been having knee problems, so I'm working on new exercises (need to loosen up my thigh muscles, perhaps) and I didn't try to go fast, but did about 16 km at an average of 10 km/h. I was doing some non-cake shopping, but also visited Lettre d'Amour, investigating for future great cake cake-offs, but I might have simply looked online and seen that they finally closed last month (I always wondered how they stayed open with as little business as they seemed to do onsite), so that's two great cakes that I've lost, though they might reappear in some form at a future date. Instead of a pastry at Lettre d'Amour I got an overly dry cinnamon bum from the Dean and Deluce on Aoyama Avenue. I guess I should have microwaved or steamed it a little bit or something.
