08.01.09
Royal Family Sesame Mochi
Happy Blogaversary to the JSFR! Yet again I had nothing super special planned but I needed to get more snacks anyway so I thought perhaps something would pop out and say WOOOO! What do you know, I found another company that makes mochi. SQUEEE! I might have bought a lot of lot of mochi, which I then retconned into the blogaversary special: a month of mochi! So to kick things off, from Taiwan here’s sesame mochi!
I’ve reviewed a sesame mochi before but it was an ice cream mochi from America and it sucked. The Taiwanese at least get sesame a little better this go around but they also aren’t rice wrapping ice cream. Instead, they offer a sesame covered traditional rice wrapped “pastry” filled with sesame paste. That’s a lot of sesame and they do indeed smell delightfully dark peanutty (or exactly like sesame).
I’d like to take a moment out of the tasting to point out some neat, nifty prettiness. Each mochi is sprinkled with three different kinds of sesame seeds which I’d guess are white, yellow and black sesame seeds. Nice. They also each have a nice contrasting red paper cup and all sit in a neat little six socket plastic tray (you get six mochi per box). This mochi is definitely a looker.
Sadly, it’s not as much of a taster as the Guinea Pigs and I expected. The mochi are surprisingly bland for being coated in sesame plus having a sesame blobbit in the middle of the treat. Most of the sesame flavor comes from the seeds on the outside which left us all puzzled. We were also puzzled by the rice paste wrapping which was even weirder than normal. The majority of my Pigs were veteran mochi munchers and all of them commented that the “dough felt wrong”. It’s less the usual squidgy rice paste wrapping of the Japanese mochi and more like really thick Jell-o marshmallow fluff. I think it has more bounce than moodge and that’s mighty odd for an entirely different set of reasons.
None of my Pigs were overly impressed with Royal Family’s Sesame Mochi and most of them thought they were at most ‘meh’ (although one did take quite a shine to them). I’d say the mochi might be able to pull a 2.5 for a decent but weaker than expected sesame flavor and I’m willing to give it an extra 0.5 pea for presentation. It certainly is the best sesame mochi I’ve yet tasted but that doesn’t mean I have to stop the search for sesame mochi to try.
Rating of 3 wasabi peas out of a possible 5 wasabi peas.
Orchid64 said,
August 2, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Congratulations on your anniversary!
These look very nice. It’s too bad that it wasn’t better, but I think that mochi for confections is often this airy, marshmallow-type of mochi. Part of the reason is likely related to preservation. I’m not sure real mochi can keep in an non-dehydrated state for very long, but I’m far from being an expert!
Boo said,
August 2, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Thanks Orchid64! Hmmm, I’m not a mochi expert either so I have no idea if this is a preservation thing or a Taiwanese thing. *shrug*
We just sampled the peanut variety and that one was definitely worth the buy. Mmmmm!
radley said,
August 29, 2010 at 11:38 pm
I love this Sesame Mochi. I’ve yet to try another brand but I’m hooked. I just bought 5 packs from the local Oriental Supermarket. I love its gluey consistency and delicate sweetness
paul said,
September 7, 2010 at 10:10 am
making mochi is pretty easy too
http://www.japansugoi.com/wordpress/japanese-mochi-is-yummy/