Omochi Icecream
In the picture you see one of my favourite Japanese ice creams. This particular sized pack contains 2 round balls (sort of flattened) called Dai Fuku. This name traditionally describes a ball of mochi stuffed with red bean paste. In this case it is vanilla ice cream filling an omochi ball.
The omochi is actually more like a thin skin surrounding the ice cream but is chewy and delicious combined with the freezing cold ice cream. It is dusted with fine sugar and looks distinctly snow ballish. The first couple of characters in the name have something to do with snow but I can’t tell what.
Straight out of the freezer these things are practically useless, unless you intend to throw them at someone (and then they would be lethal). But after a couple of minutes on the bench it is at the stage when you can just get your teeth into it. And the fun begins
Last winter I had a special issue green tea one but I can’t remember if the tea was in the ice cream or the mochi. I’m off to the snow next week and I’ll try and find them again, because they were great.
These ice creams are made by Lotte which is now an international brand, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you could find these in other countries as well. Has anyone seen them anywhere other than Japan?
They are avail in several asian stores in most major cities in Canada.
I think Lotte is a Korean company. The Korean stores around here stock a lot of Lotte items, I’ll have to look for these.
I will keep my eyes open for this at my local Asian shop. I like this sort of thing.
I love these. I would say that they are definitely my favorite ice cream product in Japan.
BTW, the first two kanji are for “snow” and “see”, which are read as “YUKI-MI”, so this ice cream is called “YUKIMIDAIFUKU”. YUKIMI seems to be a play on HANAMI (”Flower Viewing”) and TSUKIMI (”Moon viewing”).
Yes, I had green tea mochi ice cream on my senior trip –ten years ago!! in Seoul
mmmmm….