Last Cakes at Sadaharu Aoki

Whenever I go to Tokyo Midtown, I make a point of swinging by the Sadaharu Aoki shop window. Just looking at the brightly colored, whimsically adorned cakes and pastries always gives me a little jolt of happiness. Though I don't buy cake every time I pass by, I have managed to try almost every type of cake they have, so when I went there last week for the last time, the choice was easy - I just got the only two flavors I had never bought before. One of them, pictured above, was a seasonal special combining chestnut, hazelnut, and chocolate with lemon, a surprising combination. I wasn't thrilled with the chestnut-chocolate combination the last time I encountered it, but the hazelnuts, a natural chocolate partner, pulled it together here. I'm still not sure about the lemon, though I didn't mind it terribly. The texture combination was interesting, as well: a crumbly hazelnut crust, a layer of slightly crunchy chestnut-hazelnut cream, chocolate mouse and very thin lemon gel in alternating layers, and the thin, black, syrupy chocolate coating that contrasts so beautifully with the vivid colors in many of Sadaharu Aoki's desserts. The ends were crunchy with crushed hazelnuts and cocoa nibs, and the candied chestnuts and hazelnuts on top were delicious.

The other cake I'd never had before was the plainest of the line-up (which explains why it had never enticed me enough to buy it). It's a simple cheesecake, very light and fluffy, and an entirely different species from the heavy American-style version. Its crust and the cookie on top were hazelnut, but not as intense as in the first cake. Spread across the top was a very thin but intensely lemony jelly glaze, not a bit out of place here. Though not as visually exciting as its neighbors in the pastry case, the minimalist design of squares and shades of beige, crowned by that single narrow black curve of chocolate, is still very appealing, and the simplicity of its three synchronous flavors was perfectly satisfying.