We thought everyone in Japan already knew how good these are, but somehow a very important life experience had been slipping through the cracks for Seiji.
There are certain experiences that everyone has if they’ve lived long enough in Japan. It’s a pretty safe bet that just about every person in the country has, at least once in their life, sung karaoke, for example. Ditto for napping on a train or soaking in a hot spring.
Likewise, pretty much everyone in Japan has eaten Yukimi Daifuku, Japan’s most popular brand of mochi ice cream. Yukimi Daifuku (pictured above) is delicious and affordable, and being made by major confectioner Lotte means the mochi-wrapped ice cream dumplings are available in virtually every supermarket and convenience store in the nation.
And yet, our reporter Seiji Nakazawa, who was born, raised, and has lived his entire life in Japan, had never eaten it.
▼ Somehow Seiji has been carried around in a giant backpack, played guitar on the streets of London while cosplaying as Yngwie Malmsteen, gotten a Demon Slayer makeover, and rented a little sister all before ever eating Yukimi Daifuku.
Technically, Seiji is pretty sure he’s never eaten Yukimi Daifuku. His mom may have bought it for him once as a small child, but he has no recollection of eating it or how it tasted. He knows for sure he never ate it while he was a student commuting to school from home. He’s also positive he never bought it once he became an adult and moved to Tokyo, because in his early days as a struggling musician there was no money for such frivolities as ice cream mochi sweets.
▼ A lot of times, there wasn’t enough money for such frivolities as electricity.
But now that he’s got that SoraNews24 reporter money rolling in, Seiji has finally reached the strata of society where he can afford to spend 173 yen (US$1.35) for Yukimi Daifuku, so he picked up a pack on his most recent sweep through the grocery store.
Peeling off the cover, he was pleasantly surprised to see not just one, but two mochi dumplings. Each was bigger than he’d expected, and as an added classy bonus, Yukimi Daifuku even comes with a little fork so that you can keep your fingers clean as you eat them.
Using the fork, Seiji stabbed into the dumpling and held it up. He paused briefly to appreciate the weight of the moment, knowing that as soon as he took a bite he’d cross over from the period in his life when he (probably) hadn’t eaten Yukimi Daifuku into the period in which he has…
…and it’s a change he’s more than happy with, as his first taste-testing note is:
“Soooo good!”
Yukimi Daifuku are something that most people in Japan eat all throughout their childhood, and becoming so familiar with them at such a young age can make it hard for grownups to articulate just what makes them so tasty. By getting his first impression of the treat as an adult, though, Seiji could pinpoint the reasons he’d instantly fallen in love with it.
The vanilla ice cream was extraordinarily milky (this might, in part, be to his Yukimi Daifuku being the new Hokkaido Cream Purin flavor). The mochi also made its presence abundantly felt, with a fluffy/squishy consistency but a smooth-as-cream texture. It’s even more impressive that the mochi makes such a big contribution if you look at the Yukimi Daifuku’s cross section and see that, really, the mochi layer is rather thin.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Seiji had to use his second Yukimi Daifuku to take the above photo, since he’d already devoured the first, and after eating the second, “more Yukimi Daifuku” went straight onto his shopping list. “Why didn’t you guys tell me about this sooner?” he asked. Sorry, Seiji, we thought you already knew, but just like with Mr. Sato’s first trip to one of Japan’s most popular spaghetti restaurant chains, eating Yukimi Daifuku for the first time when you’re already an adult is a better-late-than-never Japanese food experience.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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