Bakery: Shuei-Do Manju Shop
City: San Jose, CA

Shuei-Do Manju Shop is a block down the street from Gombei, so I got some Japanese sweets after lunch on Friday. Below is the set of 6 sweets I picked, which was a combination of daifuku and manju.

Here, we have the pink white daifuku; rice flour with smooth lima (white) bean filling.

The mochi has a soft, chewy, and sticky texture. The lima bean paste melted in my mouth. Both the mochi and bean paste were sweet.

Below is some info about daifuku, from Wikipedia:

Daifukumochi (大福餅), or Daifuku (大福), literally “great luck”, is a Japanese confection consisting of a small round mochi (glutinous rice cake) stuffed with sweet filling, most commonly anko, sweetened red bean paste made from azuki beans.

Daifuku comes in many varieties. The most common is white-, pale green-, or pale pink-colored mochi filled with anko. These come in two sizes, one approximately 3cm (1.2in) diameter, the other palm-sized. Some versions contain whole pieces of fruit, mixtures of fruit and anko, or crushed melon paste. Nearly all daifuku are covered in a fine layer of corn or potato starch to keep them from sticking to each other, or to the fingers. Some are covered with confectioner’s sugar or cocoa powder. Though mochitsuki is the traditional method of making mochi and daifuku, they can also be cooked in the microwave. Mochi and daifuku are very popular in Japan.

Daifuku was originally called Habutai mochi (腹太餅) (belly thick rice cake) because of its filling nature. Later, the name was changed to Daifuku mochi (大腹餅) (big belly rice cake). Since the pronunciations of Fuku (腹) (belly) and Fuku (福) (luck) are the same in Japanese, the name was further changed to Daifuku mochi (大福餅) (great luck rice cake), a bringer of good luck. By the end of the 18th century, Daifuku were gaining popularity and people began eating them toasted. They were also used for gifts in ceremonial occasions.

The difference between mochi and manju is that mochi is made from pounded ricecake while manju is made of rice powder, flour, and buckwheat flour. Texturally, manju has a flakey crust and a cake-like interior. (Origamidumpling)