10.06.07
Mikawaya Mochi (red bean)
Hmmm. Red Bean. Now I love me some red beans all cooked up, pasted, sweetened and stuffed inside something (mochi!) but there is a difference between red bean and things that are red bean flavored. Take the recently reviewed White Rabbit Red Bean Creamy Candies. They were…less than stellar. So imagine my reservations when I looked into the mochi freezer cabinet and saw that Mikawaya made a red bean flavored mochi. On the one hand…Mikawaya mochi! On the other hand…red bean ice cream? Yeaaaaaahhhhhh. Fortunately there was another flavor of mochi I hadn’t yet reviewed so I grabbed that one and tra-la-la went merrily skipping out the store with my not red bean ice cream purchase.
However, after that, I had reviewed all the flavors of mochi** but the red bean and there it sat frantically waving its arms yelling “Me! Me! Review me!” whenever I entered a store looking for goodies. I always turned a blind eye and reviewed something else. Anything else. About a year’s worth of anything elses until finally I decided ‘what’s a mochi or two in the grand scheme of things?’ So I picked up a box and brought it home.
Folks, if you were wondering what that weird sound was about two weeks ago, that was the karmic boomerang coming around to whack me thoroughly in the hinder. I LOVE these red bean mochi. I even had to buy them twice because I ate the first package before I got a pic for the review. I was sort of on my last mochis of the second package too but wisdom and fear of having too many reviews stacked up but not photographed and written prevailed and I up and did a little photo shoot before the second package was gone as well. Then I ate my model. MmmmmMmmm.
Mikawaya continues to amaze me with their tastiness of mochi. Again, this mochi had the lightly colored and flavored rice pastry outer wrapping which I totally adore. I think I’ve said it before but what a nice touch there, adding a little color and mixing a little flavor fun into the normally sort of tasteless (but for the general ricy-ness) moodgie outer wrapper. I’m still a little annoyed about the sprinkling of rice flour but I fear that’s just a mochi thing. Ah well.
The ice cream is the stellar smooth and creamy Mikawaya ice cream I’ve come to expect. Good texture. As far as taste goes, there is a nice light red bean flavor but also there seems to be a sort of berryesque companion flavor as well. Maybe a light raspberry. I’ve never noticed red bean paste tasting a little raspberry fruity before but I’ve never had red bean ice cream either. Maybe making red bean paste into ice cream somehow also creates a fruity raspberry taste? I don’t know, but I also don’t mind. Red bean and lightly raspberryish go very tastily together. There are even actual red beans in the ice cream. Neat.
Of all the Mikawaya mochi that has been reviewed (chocolate chocolate, coffee, mango, strawberry, and vanilla), chocolate chocolate and now red bean are the two flavors I’d actually go out and buy as sweety treats to snack on. Yeah, vanilla and strawberry were good, but a pint of Ben and Jerry’s is better. However, throw chocolate chocolate or red bean mochi into the equation and I’d be hard pressed to choose between the ice cream or the mochi. Oddly, these are also the only two mochi without ALL NATURAL emblazoned on the packaging. Huh. I’m not sure what that says, but I’m pretty sure of my
Rating of 4 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas for red bean mochi.
(**At least I had until I ran into Mikawaya green tea mochi flavor. Why I hadn’t either noticed green tea mochi before or thought that there would be a green tea flavor mochi (helooo-ooo, Japanese and green tea? Nuff said) is beyond me. Stay tuned for that one. Sometime. Eventually.)
