More from my box filled with Japanese goodies today, this time anything I thought might have been chocolate or one of the variations of the popular Japanese snack Mochi – a Japanese rice cake made of mochigome (a short grain japonica glutinous rice). The rice is pounded into paste and moulded into the desired shape.
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We don’t know what this was! It looked a lot like a marshmallow and apparently tasted like one too (I had to let my husband try one thing – he did pay for it all!) but with a thick chocolate middle “that tasted like Nutella without the hazelnut”… As you were…
Black Kinako Mochi (?)
My Google skills led me to believe this would be Black Kinako Mochi – I don’t know how I got there ‘cos God knows I can’t find anything about that now!
Inside were four, very small (24g) circular little blobs that were covered in a loose powder with a delicious cocoa scent. They were very, very soft and squidgy with an almost jelly like texture.
I liked them, they were fairly plain to begin with but soon had a strong rich cocoa flavor. Not milk chocolate flavoured but proper cocoa. Good stuff and I’d love to try some more!
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These were another I drew a blank on. They looked like tiny chocolate love hearts and I was looking forward to trying my first bite of proper Japanese chocolate.
They weren’t.
I should’ve known once I smelt them they weren’t chocolate based. They smelt of milk and milk alone, I took a bite and found a pleasing initial snap but it soon melted on my tongue. I was left with the most delicious strawberry milkshake flavor. It’s canny and I don’t need Google Translate to tell me what flavor these are supposed to be! Tastes just like my local Wimpy Strawberry Milkshake (the best milkshake known to man) somehow solidified. Keep your chocolate I want more of these!
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Well, we have no clue what this is so if anybody knows please fill us in! I have to admit, I bottled it on this one so the task of reviewing fell to the temperamental tastebuds of my lovely husband.
I tried to photo the center and made an awful mess, the powdery coating went everywhere and despite appearances and the outward feel, it isn’t snappable at all – instead it just stretched and stretched and stretched!
He said the powdery coating had a very, very mild flavor. You’d presume cocoa or something similar but it seemed too light in color for cocoa. It was chewy as expected but wasn’t quite as much work to eat as it was to break a bit off and seemed like it had a smoother middle.
He swears blind it had a peanut like taste to it, going so far as to say it reminded him in flavor of a Snickers with the nut/chocolate/caramel combination. He’s as clueless after eating it as he was beforehand as to what it actually is, but he does know he liked it a lot!
There are 4 more chocolate/mochi themed snacks so keep your eyes peeled for part 2!
