Ah. Pulverized, glutinous sticky rice surrounding a ball of ice cream. What could be better? Well, it turns out a lot of things are better, but many things are in fact worse. We went to our "somewhat" uptown friends house for dinner last night, and after some chicken from Pio-Pio (more on this in a future post), we were ready for dessert. Besides more traditional ice cream, our friends had procured some mochi ice cream from a local market, which still exist on "somewhat" upper Broadway.
I think mochi tastes like edible latex. Rubbery, chewy, and a bit on the tasteless side. And sticky, too. None the less, there is a large tradition surrounding the stuff, including a ceremony called Mochitsuki where the stuff is made. Having said that, last I learned that not all mochi, and certainly not all mochi ice cream, is equal.
Although originally created by the giant megacorporation Lotte, mochi ice cream is now available in the US from a variety of producers. In fact, the Lotte brand we had last night was clearly inferior to the mochi ice cream distributed by the somewhat smaller megacorporation Sanwa. It was also more expensive.
All in all, I'm not running back for more mochi. But it is an interesting dessert, and it does look cool on a plate.
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