Japan: assorted snacks and sweets, mostly mochi
Here are some random snacks and sweets from our trip to Japan last year.
I’ll start with the mochi and mochi type items – because I loved the mochi in Japan. It was all so fresh and delicious!
I’ll start with some of the best. When we were in Takayama, there was a sweets shop down the road from our ryokan. I wish I had taken a photo of the shop now – they had glass fronted cabinets lined with what must have been rows of 20 different flavours of individually wrapped daifuku (mochi with a filling). It. Was. Wonderful. The daifuku from there was the best I have ever eaten! The mochi had the usual characteristic chewiness, but it was really fresh and soft, and seemed to melt in the mouth.
Just before we left Takayama for our next stop, I purchased three flavours to eat on the train – green tea, chocolate and the purple one was a purple Japanese fruit that we had seen at the markets, which I believe is called akebi. My favourite was the green tea with chestnut filling. The sweetness of the chestnut filling was perfect against the bitterness of the green tea. Sigh. I still remember that daifuku very fondly and wish we could get ones as good here in Australia.
This is the purple fruit that I think is called akebi. We never tried the actual fruit, but the daifuku didn’t really have a distinctive taste. It wasn’t memorable at all, and all I can recall of it is the red bean filling.
We came across these in a market in Osaka – they are like an inverted daifuku with the red bean paste wrapped around plain mochi.
In this version, the green colour of the mochi wasn’t green tea, as I assumed. I’m pretty sure that I was told it’s due to mugwort, a herb that grows wild in Japan. It gives the mochi an earthy taste. I preferred the plain version, although this one was interesting to try.
This sweet was part of a lunch set we ate on the top floor of a department store in Kyoto. I believe this is called warabimochi, and it’s not a proper mochi. Mochi is made from pounded glutinous rice, while warabimochi is made from bracken starch. It has a chewy, jelly like texture. We had a couple of pieces with green tea powder and some with kinako (toasted soy bean flour). It may not have been proper mochi but I loved it. It wasn’t too sweet, and I really enjoyed the texture.
When we were in Koyasan, we rather quickly ran out of sights to see and things to do. We ended up killing time by hanging out in a sweets shop, eating sweets and drinking tea. We tried three varieties – this one was a warabimochi with kinako covering.
I think these ones were a type of manju (fukashi manju?), a steamed rice cake with a red bean filling.
This was the third item from the sweets shop, and I will have to be honest and tell you I have no idea what it’s called! It’s on top of a paper bag because I bought it for the train ride to Osaka and it got a bit flattened in transit.
These triangle shaped sweets are big in Kyoto and are called nama yatsuhashi. The soft, mochi-like skin is made from rice flour, flavoured with cinnamon, and comes with different fillings inside, such as red bean, black sesame, or fruit flavours. The skin can also come in a variety of different flavours. These were some of my favourite Japanese sweets – I loved the faint cinnamon flavour, and of course, the soft chewy skins. I did try a fruit version (strawberry) but I preferred the ones that were green tea, black sesame or red bean.
Here you can see all different varieties boxed up for sale. They can also be baked into cookies called yatsuhashi, but we didn’t try the baked versions.
By the way, I have read that a piece of mochi that is around match-box sized has the same amount of calories as a bowl of rice. Gulp! Perhaps if I had known that I wouldn’t have stuffed my gob with so much mochi…. Nah, who am I kidding! It wouldn’t have stopped me!
Now moving away from the mochi, and back to Takayama. This stall at the morning market sold sweets that were like cubes of marshmallow, covered in egg and honey and then grilled.
The cubes were super sweet, soft and eggy. So so sweet! I had a hard time eating a whole one.
Everyone knows that Japan is the land of crazy Kit Kat flavours – we came across an apple and carrot version. Sadly, it was horrible and tasted rather like bodywash!
Alastair bought this box of chocolate covered ice cream balls from a vending machine. When he opened it up, we found that each ball was individually wrapped!
This is vanilla ice cream in a squeezy pack – called Coolish – and yes, we did buy it because of the name! How could we have passed it up? Alastair only ate half before it was stolen off him! Okay, not really stolen – a teenage boy with Down’s Syndrome came up to him, said hello, and grabbed the Coolish. Alastair let him have it, although he said wistfully later, “I was really enjoying that ice cream.” Awww!
This was a green tea ice cream we ate in Tokyo and the reason it’s up here? LOOK AT THE CONE! It catches any ice cream drips! Isn’t that just genius?
And now on to drinks – Mitsuya Cider was one of our favourites. There are other flavours, but the basic flavour sort of resembles Sprite, although not quite as sweet. There are also Mitsuya Cider hard candies, which fizz in the mouth as they dissolve. I loved the candies and made sure we purchased several bags to bring home.
We are big fans of Calpis. Big fans. I love all those fermented milk type drinks. This flavour is a “more nutritious” yoghurt version, and was fantastic.
If you’re still with me – yay you! Only a few more snacks to go. I had to take a photo of these potato chips because I was rather amused that the chips were encased in a bag inside the tube.
Not being able to read Japanese, I purchased these chips expecting them to be salty. I was rather surprised when I ate one and discovered that they were sweet potato and therefore, sweet! After I got over my initial surprise, I quite liked them.
And how about some crunchy sticks of unhealthy, fried, processed carbs? Yes please!
And to finish off, here’s a photo of taiyaki, a Japanese fish shaped cake. We ate these in Tokyo, where there were numerous little shops selling freshly cooked ones. The outside is like a pancake/waffle, and inside the most common filling is red bean, although we also tried custard.
We ate many, many more snacks in Japan, but fortunately I didn’t take photos of everything otherwise we would be here all night. If you want more Japan eats, previous Japan posts can be found here.
Cindy
June 3, 2010 @ 9:56 pm
Fantastic! I went mad for Japan's mochi and snacks on our recent holiday too, though the over-packaging drove me crazy. 😛
mademoiselle délicieuse
June 3, 2010 @ 10:12 pm
Awww…so cute and tasty!
Foodessa
June 3, 2010 @ 10:28 pm
Ohhh, Agnes…thank you so much for giving me a small look into culinary Japan. How different everything is. I'm hoping to one day have a chance to visit.
My very favourites are those stunning purple fruits and of course those absolutely creative ice-cream cones. I want some of those!
Great post…can't wait for your next one.
Flavourful wishes, Claudia
Hannah
June 3, 2010 @ 11:06 pm
I can't breathe. I can't breathe. So many memories and the agony of not having access to there anymore. Urglefiddlebopkin. When I visited my brother in Japan in 2006, I fell deeply in love with any and all sweets that had the combination of green tea and red bean, discovered and became obsessed with kinako, and began my to-this-day hunt for chestnut flavoured desserts. (Interestingly, these were all my favourite kit kat flavours too.)
Somehow, the two rainbow paddlepops I just ate in a row seem like a crime against myself now.
I'm so envious at the moment that I think, at our upcoming slumber party where we're going to eat fairy bread and talk about boys, I might put your hand in a bucket of water while you sleep.
Sarah
June 4, 2010 @ 9:48 am
Oh cute! That warabi mochi reminds me of Malaysian muachee (which I think is actually just the Chinese version of the same word). The Malaysian version is covered with sugar and crushed peanuts though (Aiyo, so Malaysian one!)
I love that you included taiyaki – it's my fave Japanese dessert. I even bought a taiyaki pan after I came home, haha.
xox Sarah
Sweets By Vicky
June 4, 2010 @ 10:34 am
I LOVE MOCHI! okay, I swear I'm not strange., 🙂 I'm soo insanely jealous of your mochi escapades. I love the awesome drip-catching cone too.
penny aka jeroxie
June 4, 2010 @ 10:06 pm
What a great post on all the things that I love! Memories indeed and you are right, hard to find a good mochi here. Should we have a mochi party?
Agnes
June 4, 2010 @ 11:26 pm
Cindy: Oh yes the over-packaging was rather insane!
mademoiselle: It's the land of cute and tasty! 😀
Foodessa: We really should have tried the purple fruit – I've never seen it any where else. Hopefully there'll be a next time!
Hannah: Hahahaha, god you're funny! Cos that was a joke, right? You wouldn't really put my hand in a bucket of water….. right? Right? Ummmm. My mum says I'm not allowed to have anyone over any more, so errr, yeah looks like the slumber party is off. And two rainbow paddle pops in a row? I don't think I've eaten a paddle pop in ten years! Are the rainbow ones bubble gum flavoured?
Sarah: Taiyaki is so cool! Hehee, that's awesome that you bought a pan 😀 The Malaysian muachee looks fantastic – sugar and crushed peanuts? Yes please!
Sweets by Vicky: You're definitely not strange – I am totally in love with mochi too! 😀
Penny: Yes to a mochi party! I need an excuse to make mochi. 😀
Hannah
June 5, 2010 @ 4:09 pm
No, I wouldn't, because that would be mean. (All I'll really do is put shaving cream on your hand then tickle your face with a feather.)
But you'll forgive me when I give your fancy chocolate, right? And then we can buy those matching split-heart best friend necklaces? I'll wear Be Fri if you wear St Ends.
P.S. You've pinpointed my exact dilemma. I don't know what rainbow is meant to taste like.
wood bed frames
June 5, 2010 @ 4:36 pm
I never thought that Japan could have these nice and good looking snacks! They are famous with their raw food.
What's For Tea?
June 8, 2010 @ 8:59 am
Soy sauce KitKats are off the metre! My absolute favourite. How I HEART Japan 🙂
Agnes
June 8, 2010 @ 8:40 pm
Hannah: I want to wear Be Fri! St Ends just sounds… well, weird.
wood bed frames: Japan has FANTASTIC snacks! Fantastic food overall, actually. 🙂
What's For Tea: Soy sauce Kit Kats! I want to try those. Very interesting.
Hannah
June 8, 2010 @ 9:57 pm
And here I was thinking I was being selfless! My primary school best friend wanted St Ends, you see 😀 (I also always had to voice the Ken barbie doll, because she didn't want to be the boy. For some reason, I didn't feel like my gender was tied to the barbie I held in my hand.)
Conor @ Hold the Beef
June 12, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
Such a good post, despite making me horribly wistful about being in Japan and eating delicious Japanese things.
I think you have made a mistake with your spelling though. I think it's actually Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmochi.
Agnes
June 18, 2010 @ 1:58 pm
Conor: Oh, thanks for picking up my spelling mistake! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmochi is much better! 😉 I also miss being in Japan and eating awesomely delicious Japanese food. Wah.
thanh7580
July 3, 2010 @ 1:32 pm
Love this post Agnes. Japan has so many cool food items. Can't wait to go there soon. That ice cream cone is ingenious. Did they have that everywhere? I guess storage of it is harder as its way more fragile and takes up more room so maybe most places might not use it.
Petunia Evans
May 10, 2016 @ 5:37 am
I absolutely love mochi, so I’d love try out the Takayama. I also really liked the sound of yatsuhashi, as I love cinnamon. Looking at all of these cool treats makes me want to travel to Japan now!
Scott
May 10, 2016 @ 6:47 am
So many novel shapes and flavors here that I haven’t seen in some of the Japanese confectionary shops in California. Will have to check these out, next time I’m around 🙂