LA- Part Two - Fugetsu Do Bakery- Mochi

after the tofu festival, we decided to explore more of little tokyo and check out the mochi shop that i read about on chowhound.com, fugetsu do, which is located on 315 E. 1st Street. the store is very quaint inside. it almost reminds me of an old chinese apothecary shops in chinatown. the service was very friendly and nice, and they wrapped our mochi with a little ribbon and gift wrap. i'm really tickled by that.

folks, i really wanted to like this place badly especially since it's a mom and pop establishment and a mochi shop! so i'll keep this brief. i was really disappointed in the mochi. the mochi didn't melt in my mouth. either they didn't make it well or the mochi wasn't fresh. if the mochi at hogetsu bakery in chula vista, san diego was given an A, the mochi here at fugetsu-do ranks a C-. the colored rainbow one was especially tough to chew on, i took one bite and it was like chewing on glue. i disliked it so much, i gave the rest to oo. neither of us said anything after eating the mochi. i think the fact that we left two mochi uneaten says a lot about the mochi.

in conclusion, either i got unlucky and tasted a bad batch, or whoever recommended the mochi obviously never had better mochi before. there is one mochi shop in gardena that has been consistently good. their stuff is so fresh that when i tried their mochi in hawaii the next day, i thought it was the most fantastic thing i've ever eaten. so you see how sad it is, when a person walks right into a mochi shop in little tokyo and buys a mochi with a texture as fresh as frozen wonton wrappers.

but all is not lost. we fared much better with our dinner at haru-ulala, to be written about in part 3...