08.08.04

Azuki Daifuku Mochi

Posted in 3.0 Wasabi Pea Rating, Mochi, Sweet at 1:32 pm by Boo

BeanFlavorRiceCake.jpg

Well, my grand August plans for the JSFR got to a roaring start no? I can not seem to find plain Pretz anywhere so I am going to change up the theme a bit for this month and add: Things that finish out a category. Stay tuned for some more Tohato Corn Doogers and the last flavor of Yan Yan. Those I could find.

I also found the rice cake fellas and unleashed them at the Wednesday game and let me tell you, these guys generated the most discussion of any snack food to date. People had more to say about these than they did about the jelly cakes, which garnered a lively response. Jelly cakes were even referenced when discussing the rice cakes so you know these have the conversational pointage going down.

Let me take you step by step through eating a rice cake because the actual eating of the cake is only about 40% of the journey. They come six to a see through package so you can already see what you are going to get before you actually buy and open the package. They look semi-transparent (not the best sign, but not a complete deterrent either) and they have a dusting of powder on them. They are also squishy in a firm sort of resistant way if you happen to poke the package once or twice (or multiple times. A-hem, moving on).

After buying them, the next step is to open them which…is no big. They have zero smell of any sort so nothing comes rampaging out of the package to take your nose hostage, or entice it to linger on the odor. The weirdness begins when you actually grab a cake because…Ewwwwww! That would be an ” Ewwwwww!” of “creepy, yet intriguingly fascinating!” rather than a “Hell NO am I touching one of these ever again”. To my best descriptive ability, they feel like a super-saturated gelatinous cotton ball or if you prefer, plushie finger Jell-o. They are incredibly soft, disturbingly soft, almost so soft that you want to pet them and fix up a terrarium to house them in rather than eat them. They are also disconcertingly squishy yet firm. They give, but they also have a weird elasticity to them that implies they will only give so far. DQ thought they felt like bread dough, and I’d go with that except bread dough sorta begs to be stretched and poked and whatnot. These? Not so much.

After greatly amusing ourselves with the texture, we (everyone but Badmovie…yet even Badmovie could not resist the urge to touch the cakes. Multiple times) bit into them. Let me say, the weirdness does not stop with the touching. They have an outer layer of rice paste? Something that was very much like neutron dense marshmallow but without any of the sugar. The dusting of powder didn’t really come into play much, other than it probably lent some traction to the rice paste. I’m of the opinion they would have been rather slick without the powder and I’m not sure that would have been such a good experience.

The middle contains a tasty blob of bean paste, which I am a big fan of. I love me some bean paste, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, think sweetened navy beans cooked up and mashed. Mmmm. TheMan, on the other hand, hates bean paste. In fact, he hated just about everything to do with the rice cakes from the initial squidginess to the sweet center bean paste reward. He would also like you to know he wanted to rate these about even with Jelly Cake and is quite upset about the actual rating. Now you know.

Badmove reported that LunarGeography loves rice cakes and DQ rather liked them as well. I was completely in love with them because fun! Soft! Squishy! BEAN PASTE!!! Nuff said that. Paul the Other did not so much like the actual eating or the taste of them, but was mightily amused by their entertainment value. He rates them very high on the entertainment factor. Badmove was also pretty much a “no” on the eating but amused by the texture as well. As one last bit of fun I pulled one of the cakes apart to see what would happen. Weirdly, they stretch quite far for something that also bites off fairly cleanly. If you could combine the stretchy of taffy and the firmness of finger Jell-o you might get an idea of what I’m talking about. They bite like the Jell-o, stretch like the taffy and that’s not completely right.

Personally, I’d give these a 4.5 and I am fairly certain LunarGeography would agree with that assessment while TheMan would most likely be screaming bloody murder. He *might* go as far as a single pea rating on a good day. Maybe. There was lots of kudos for amusement, and there was a lot of amusement so I’m fine with 2 amusement peas even if some think the taste is well below the one pea mark. So based on the fact that this snack food seemed to be heavy on the extremes, I’m going to go with a very average

Rating of 3 Wasabi Peas out of a possible 5.

4 Comments »

  1. TheMan said,

    August 12, 2004 at 4:49 pm

    Just a quick alternate opinion and review from me…
    Dear GOD! Avoid these horrifying things at all cost! In a sane and reasonable world there would never be a snack food with this consistency OR flavor!
    I made the mistake of popping the whole glutenous mass into my mouth at once, rather than taking a small nibble and hurling the remnant away with great force. I managed to choke it down, but every attempt to chew was a struggle between my jaws and my gag reflex.

  2. boo said,

    August 13, 2004 at 8:27 am

    “In a sane and reasonable world there would never be a snack food with this consistency OR flavor!”
    OK, them’s fightin words there Mister. You have besmirched Bean Paste’s honor! Now I shall have to go out and avenge Bean Paste! Or just get a packet o’ the pink rice cakes. Hee! But seriously, hey now on the consistency dissing; most of the fun came from poking at the cakes. Did you SEE Badmovie’s face when he was poking my cake? (Doesn’t that sound bad) Pure revolting enjoyment.
    Tell you what, you don’t have to try the pink ones but you can poke them if you want. *giggle*

  3. dot said,

    August 13, 2004 at 11:12 am

    I found that they firm up a little if you leave them uncovered on the counter overnight, which was a little weird, the package protected side was still very soft but the top had sort of a ‘skin’ texture (think pudding). I’m willing to be a testor for the pink or orange ones, and didn’t badmovie say that there were ones with an ‘ice cream’ filling?

  4. Kate said,

    June 3, 2010 at 11:36 pm

    These things are soooooo addictive… There is a variety that has not only red bean paste in the middle, but whole sweetened red beans in the outer paste, which makes for a really interesting contrast in consistency. Also, they’re pretty much the daifuku mochi version of crack for a red bean fan.

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