konichiwa mochi!

a recent trip to cultural food phenom, yogurtland - which can kind of be likened to the fiscally challenged girl's version of pinkberry - brought me to try mochi rice cake pieces.

what in the world are mochi?

mochi are little pieces of rice cake, dusted with a very light sprinkling of fine powdered sugar. the particular ones i am referring to are like little short and stout opaque white cylinders. i had seen a little cup piled high at pinkberry but had absolutely no idea what those little cylinders could be. styrofoam? a gummy bearlike substance or a hard candy? sweet or sour? a japanese version of cap'n crunch? too afraid to look like some topping newbie to my pinkberry swirler, i just ask for the usual double raspberries.

enter yogurtland. yougurtland has at least 12 flavors on tap daily (a taste of today's offerings: dutch chocolate, madagascar vanilla, red velvet cake batter, green tea, creamy strawberry, pistachio, tart, cookies and cream, pomegranate and dulce de leche - there are a few more but memory is cloudy at the time of this writing), not to mention an insane topping bar that covers all the taste groups, chocolate, fruit, cookies, candy bars, chocolate, sprinkles, cheesecake, brownies, chocolate, chocolate sauce, cookie dough bites, mochi, coconut, gummies (worms AND bears), and nerds. not the bespeckled kind, the candy.

and amongst all the mouthwatering toppings, there sat the mochi - giving me a knowing wink from its little lucite bowl and saying slyly, "hey long weekend style. try me. i'm delicious. go ahead. just a spoonful. there you go. the first one is free. you'll be back for more. i know it."

so i tenatively placed a small heaping tablespoon of mochi topped my mini kilamanjaro of pomegranate yogurt and set off to the register to pay.

yogurtland is a pay-by-the-ounce establishment and 30 cents an ounce at that. my little cup of creamy cold goodness gets onto the scale and out pops the price for today's yogurty excursion: $2.10. $2.10 for what appears to be a large pomegranate yogurt topped with mochi rice cake pieces, oreo cookies, chocolate chips and smashed kit kat bar.

my children, bellies full of hunger from an afternoon photo shoot with a friend, eyeball my specially designed yogurt creation, despite having their own gargantuan cups of yogurt goodness of their own choosing sitting right in front of them. my daughter coyly asks to try a mochi. upon seeing his twin sister score one, brother decides he must also partake.

the verdict? now everyone's on board. mochi - a delicious, chewy jelly/gummy goodness that is really more about substance than flavor. the mochi rice cake bits seem to melt in your mouth, probably accounting for some of the novel, fun factor involved in eating them. being more of a neutral flavor, mochi rice cake pieces will probably be a perfect topping compliment to whatever flavor yogurt makes your socks roll up and down.

and long weekend stylers, be warned, mochi rice cake pieces are absolutely addictive.

i am already planning how i can get my hands on that entire lucite bowl of mochi at yogurtland without drawing astonished stares from customers and cashier alike.