Bizarre, Chewy, Japanese Ice Cream Balls Available in Illinois and Wisconsin

This is a common question I get at home from my stepdaughter..."Will you get/make me a treat?" I usually have a good supply of something sugar based that will put a smile on her face. The other night she asked for something very specific, and weird.

"I want Mochi." Say what? Now I'm not sure how or where she heard of these things, but I put my shoes on and headed to the store looking for them anyway. "They are an ice cream treat, Facetime me when you get there." Oh technology, is there anything you can't do?

So I get to the store, walk up and down the ice cream aisle, and finally find "Mochi." What in the hell? They come in different flavors including, strawberry, cookies and cream, double chocolate, and the one she wanted..."Horchata." By the picture on the box I'm assuming they are simply ice cream balls...not so fast.

As I'm waiting to checkout I'm Googling what in the world these things are. Mochi is ice cream wrapped up in a "Japanese sweet rice dough." All I heard was ice cream, so be it.

On the box of Mochi Ice Cream it reads: 100 calories per piece, ok that works...I'm getting a sweet treat for my sweet stepdaughter, that's "not bad" for her...But then I flipped over the box and read the nutritional facts. Each Mochi Ball, has 80 GRAMS OF SUGAR.

So what do they taste like? Weird. Super weird. I'm a texture person, and the "sweet rice dough" that covers the ice cream is chewy. It's stretchy, chewy, and is like a taffy/bubble gum texture. It's one on the weirdest ice cream treats "texture wise" I've ever had. The Horchata is a bizarre flavor that I will pass on, but the cookies and cream is pretty good. I can't get past the chewy sweet rice covering, it is too strange to me...No thanks.

The kid loves them, she stretched and pulled on them and ate a few. Happy stepdaughter, happy wife...Or something like that.