I’m on a mochi ice cream quest. If you’ve never had one, you’re missing out on one of life’s simple pleasures. It’s a golf ball-sized Japanese dessert with a a soft, slightly chewy rice cake shell, and a filling of ice cream. I could eat a thousand of them.
When I lived in Boston, my friend Moki and I would eat regularly at Porter Exchange, a Japanese food mall in Cambridge. The mall had this little ice cream stand near the back that sold amazing mochi; the rice cake was so fresh and had just the right amount of chewiness. You bit in, and bam, you hit the creamy inner filling of red bean or green tea ice cream. Just thinking about them makes me miss Boston.
I can’t seem to find a good mochi around here. Trader Joe’s sells a sorry excuse for one. I don’t know what’s going on with the texture of the rice cake, and the ice cream has a slightly chemical taste. Nasty. Kam Sen in White Plains has every Asian food product under the sun, but even they don’t carry a mochi that’s up to par. I’ve had decent mochi in local Japanese restaurants, but once when I asked a waiter where they bought theirs, all I got was a puzzled expression.
The search continues. If you can recommend a store in Westchester that carries a quality mochi, I will be forever thankful. I’m getting desperate.
May 4th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I just saw some at Trader Joe’s on Central Park Ave. There is also a big Asian supermarket nearby (in the plaza with Havana Jeans).
May 5th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
My superior journalism skills (aka Google) tells me it’s called New Golden Village. 365 Central Park Ave.
Also, you might want to look into Nijiya and Nippan Daido if they’re still open.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Hey Doug - Have you ever tried making your own mochi? I found a recipe for it and it doesn’t look hard to make, just a matter of finding the glutinous rice flour (mochiko). I agree - those Porter Square mochi were REALLY good. The only other ones I had were Trader Joe’s… Here’s the recipe link:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2041584_mochi-ice-cream.html?ref=fuel&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ssp&utm_campaign=yssp_art
May 7th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Wow, I never even thought about making them myself. If I can find the mochiko, that looks surprisingly doable. You just gave my next project. If these turn out well, I might start a mochi stand outside my apartment.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Check out this posting about mochi:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070210121712AAnDrH7
This person said he finds good mochi at COSTCO…. note that he lives in Oahu so I’m guessing a NY Costco may not carry it, but I guess you never know. He also said Dean and Deluca carries it so maybe you’ll find it downtown.
Emma had a lemonade stand set up last month. Maybe instead of serving brownies with the lemonade, we’ll serve mochi at the next one.
June 17th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Hi, Doug,
I’ve been enjoying reading your blog, and cannot help coming back to this very first article because it’s also my favorite dessert. I used to buy them when I lived in Japan and did not know they sell them here. I happened to find a recipe on a Japanese-language website, so here is a translation of it. I wanted to try making it myself, but I couldn’t because I do not have a microwave.
How to make Mochi Ice Cream (6 to 8 servings)
Original recipe is available at
Ingredients:
Sweet rice powder 50g
Sugar 100g
Water 100ml
Ice cream 150-200g
Cornstarch as necessary
Instructions (will make more sense if you look at the recipe webpage and read it)
1 spread cornstarch onto a cutting board (plenty enough so that the mochi dough does not touch the cutting board)
2 Put sweet rice powder into a microwave-proof bowl and add water little by little. Mix well, add sugar, and mix well again.
3 Cover with plastic wrap (leaving some room for the air to evaporate) and cook in the microwave (600v) for 2 minutes. Mix with a wooden spoon (have it moistened before mixing the dough) and cook for another 1 minute.
4 The dough is ready if the dough becomes shiny and smooth.
5 Again, moist the wooden spoon, spread the dough onto the cutting board as flat as possible.
6 Be careful; the dough is very hot at first. Cover the surface with corn starch and flip it over. Stretch the edges and make the dough thinner.
7 Repeat 6 several times until the dough becomes 2 to 3 mm thick.
8 Once the dough is cool enough, cut it into rounds.
9 Take away the dough around the rounds.
10 To freeze the dough, cover each layer of mochi sheet with plastic wrap so that each sheet do not touch and that it does not get dry, and put it into the freezer.
11 To wrap ice cream with the mochi sheet, put the ice cream onto the center of the mochi sheet. The shape of the mochi ice cream becomes rounder if the shape of the ice cream is round. Use an ice cream server if you have one.
12 Close the edges and put it in the freezer until it’s time to eat!
13 This is how the mochi ice cream looks like when you cut it in the middle.
14 Using a mochi ice cream container to form the shape
15 The final result of a mochi ice cream using a left-over container
June 17th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
For some reason, I could not leave the link to the recipe webpage. So, here it is. I think this sweet rice powder is available at Japanese grocery stores in the Westchester area.
http://cookpad.com/mykitchen/recipe/341518/