What Is Mochi? Daifuku, Mochi Ice Cream and the Viral Mochi Cubes, Explained
October 9, 2026 · Exotic Snaxx Team · 4226 N Harlem Ave, Norridge
Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made from mochigome, a glutinous short-grain rice that is steamed and pounded into a soft, stretchy dough. Daifuku is mochi wrapped around a sweet filling, mochi ice cream is mochi wrapped around ice cream, and the viral mochi cubes and osmanthus mochi are homemade versions of the same dough.
Mochi is the snack people walk into the store asking about by the wrong name. They want "the chewy Japanese thing from TikTok", or "the little ice cream balls", or "those mochi cubes", and they are usually describing three different foods that share one dough. This guide sorts them out, explains what the viral versions actually are, and shows you which packaged mochi is on the shelf at 4226 N Harlem Ave in Norridge right now and what each one costs.
What is mochi actually made of?
Mochi is made from one ingredient that matters: mochigome, a short-grain glutinous rice. The rice is steamed, then pounded until the grains break down into a smooth, elastic paste, which is shaped while it is still warm. That is the whole recipe. Sugar, water and cornstarch sometimes join in, but the chew comes from the rice, not from any additive. (Wikipedia, Mochi, retrieved 2026-10-09.)
"Glutinous" trips people up. It has nothing to do with gluten. Mochigome is naturally gluten free; the word describes how sticky the cooked rice is. That stickiness is why mochi stretches the way it does and why it holds a filling without tearing.
Traditionally the pounding is a two-person job called mochitsuki, done with a wooden mallet and a stone mortar in the days before the Japanese New Year. One person swings, the other turns and wets the dough between hits. Factory mochi skips the ceremony but not the rice, so a packaged daifuku from a Japanese maker still has the same stretch as the hand-pounded version, just in a smaller, shelf-stable form.
What is the difference between mochi and daifuku?
Daifuku is a type of mochi, not a competitor to it. The word means "great luck", and it describes a small round mochi, about 4 cm across, stuffed with a sweet filling and dusted with rice or potato starch so the pieces do not stick to each other or to your fingers. (Wikipedia, Daifuku, retrieved 2026-10-09.)
The classic filling is anko, a sweetened paste of azuki red beans. The version that took over Instagram is ichigo daifuku, which hides a whole strawberry inside the bean paste. It was invented in the 1980s, several Japanese shops claim credit for it, and it is the reason strawberry is the first flavor most people look for when they discover daifuku.
So when you read "mochi" on a package at Exotic Snaxx, what you are usually buying is daifuku: a soft rice cake with something sweet in the middle. The Kubota strawberry, peach, matcha and lychee packs are all daifuku. If you want plain mochi with no filling, that is kirimochi, the hard dried block the Japanese toast at New Year, and it is a different product aimed at cooks rather than snackers.
What are mochi cubes, osmanthus mochi and Mt. Fuji mochi?
These three names come up constantly and none of them is a brand. They are recipe trends from TikTok and Instagram, each a different way of serving the same glutinous rice dough.
- Mochi cubes are mochi cut into bite-size squares and served in a bowl, usually with fruit, cream or a syrup. The viral versions are mango, pomelo and sago with cream cheese mochi cubes, and the "mini mochi mukbang" clips where someone eats a tray of them on camera.
- Osmanthus mochi is a homemade mochi made from glutinous rice flour and cornstarch, cooked in a microwave or on the stove, then rolled in or drizzled with osmanthus flower syrup. Osmanthus is a sweet, apricot-scented flower used in Chinese desserts, and this one trends every autumn.
- Mt. Fuji mochi is mochi ice cream shaped and colored like the mountain, white peak on a blue base. It is a cafe dessert and a photo prop more than a product you will find in a packet.
None of these come in a package. If a recipe video sent you looking for "mochi packages", what you actually want is the closest shelf product: a pack of fresh-style daifuku you can eat straight away, or bite-size filled mochi you can cube yourself. Both are in the mochi collection.
Which packaged mochi can you buy in Chicago?
The store carries more than 2,400 imported snacks, and the mochi shelf is one of the few places where almost everything is made in Japan rather than copied elsewhere. Every pack below is $8.99, which is the whole shelf at one price so you can pick on flavor alone. Prices read from the live product pages on 2026-10-09.
| Product | Style | Flavor | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kubota Strawberry Daifuku | Daifuku, strawberry paste filling | Strawberry | $8.99 |
| Kubota Peach Daifuku | Daifuku | Peach | $8.99 |
| Kubota Matcha Daifuku | Daifuku, matcha paste filling | Green tea | $8.99 |
| Kubota Lychee Daifuku | Daifuku | Lychee | $8.99 |
| Kubota Baked Soft Rice Cake | Baked mochi, 200 g | Melon | $8.99 |
| Seiki Ichigo Mochi | Bite-size, strawberry puree filling, resealable pouch | Strawberry | $8.99 |
| Seiki White Peach Mochi | Bite-size, resealable pouch | White peach | $8.99 |
Two makers, two formats. Kubota is the classic daifuku: individually wrapped, palm-size, soft, with a smooth fruit or matcha paste inside. Seiki is the pouch format: smaller pieces in a resealable stand-up bag, built for grazing and for cubing into a bowl. If the recipe videos are what brought you here, Seiki is the one to buy; if you want the dessert-counter experience, buy Kubota.
Which flavor should you start with?
Strawberry, every time, and specifically the Kubota strawberry daifuku. It is the store's best-selling mochi, it is the flavor ichigo daifuku made famous, and the sweetness is gentle enough that people who think they do not like "rice cake" change their minds on the first piece.
From there the ladder goes peach, then lychee if you like floral fruit, then matcha. Matcha is the one to buy last, not because it is worse but because the filling is slightly bitter by design and it reads as strange if it is your first mochi. People who already drink green tea usually jump straight to it.
Melon is the outlier. The Kubota baked rice cake is a softer, cakier mochi rather than a stretchy one, and the melon flavor is the Japanese cantaloupe note you find in Ramune and melon sodas. Buy it if you already like those; skip it if you want the chew.
How do you eat and store packaged mochi?
Eat it at room temperature, in small bites. Cold mochi goes firm and loses its stretch, so if the pack has been in a cold car, give it twenty minutes on the counter. Once a pack is open, finish it within a few days; daifuku dries out and the starch coating turns gummy if it sits.
The small-bites part is not fussiness. Mochi is dense and sticky, and it is a known choking risk in Japan, mostly among the elderly at New Year. A 2015 report cited by Wikipedia put the Tokyo Fire Department's count at more than 100 people a year hospitalized for choking on mochi in Tokyo alone. (Wikipedia, Mochi, retrieved 2026-10-09.) Cut daifuku in half for kids, and do not hand a whole one to a toddler.
Is Japanese mochi the same as mochi ice cream?
Same wrapper, different middle. Mochi ice cream is a small ball of ice cream wrapped in a thin layer of mochi, and in Japan the famous version is Lotte's Yukimi Daifuku, "snow-viewing daifuku". The American grocery-store mochi ice cream copies that format. (Wikipedia, Mochi, retrieved 2026-10-09.)
The packaged daifuku on our shelf is the older, room-temperature form: more rice cake, no freezer, a paste filling instead of ice cream. If you have only ever had mochi ice cream, the first bite of real daifuku feels chewier and more substantial, which is the point. It is a sweet you can carry in a bag, which the frozen version is not.
Mochi donuts are the third cousin: a chewy ring made famous in Japan by Mister Donut, now all over Hawaii and the US mainland. They are a bakery item, not a packaged one, so we do not carry them.
Read next
Mochi is one shelf in the Japan collection. For the rest of it, in order of what to buy first, read Japanese Snacks Tier List: What to Actually Buy First. For why the Japanese version of a familiar brand tastes different from the American one, Exotic Snacks 101 explains it.
Everything in this post is on the shelf at Exotic Snaxx, 4226 N Harlem Ave #101, Norridge, IL 60706, inside Harlem Irving Plaza. Order online from the mochi collection and pick it up at the counter, usually the same day, or come in and pick by hand.
Sources: Wikipedia, "Mochi", retrieved 2026-10-09, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi. Wikipedia, "Daifuku", retrieved 2026-10-09, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daifuku. Product prices and descriptions read from exoticsnaxxshop.com product pages on 2026-10-09.
Questions people actually ask
Is mochi gluten free?
Plain mochi is naturally gluten free. It is made from glutinous rice, and the word glutinous describes stickiness, not gluten. Flavored or filled versions can add other ingredients, so read the label on each pack if you have coeliac disease or a wheat allergy.
What does mochi taste like?
Plain mochi tastes mild and faintly sweet, like soft rice, and the texture is the point: chewy, stretchy and dense. Daifuku adds a sweet filling such as strawberry paste or red bean, so most packaged mochi tastes mostly of its filling with the rice as a soft wrapper.
Do you have to refrigerate packaged mochi?
Unopened packs of daifuku and bite-size mochi are shelf stable; keep them at room temperature and out of direct sun. Once open, eat within a few days. Refrigeration makes mochi firm and dry, so if a pack has been chilled, let it sit out before eating.
What are mochi cubes?
Mochi cubes are not a product but a serving style: mochi cut into small squares and served in a bowl with fruit, cream, sago or syrup. The viral recipes use homemade or bite-size mochi. The closest packaged version is a pouch of small filled mochi you can cube yourself.
Where can I buy mochi near Chicago?
Exotic Snaxx at 4226 N Harlem Ave #101 in Norridge, inside Harlem Irving Plaza, stocks Kubota daifuku and Seiki bite-size mochi from Japan at $8.99 a pack. Order online for same-day pickup at the counter, or shop the mochi shelf in person.
