I think a lot of Americans (maybe most) are familiar with mochi only in ice cream form.  I have tried one or two ice cream mochi, but they just don't do much for me.  But "real" mochi?  Oh yes!

The first thing I always notice about mochi when I pick them up at the store is their surprising weight.  They must be very dense, for something so small to be so heavy.  I would say they weigh nearly as much as a stone, volume for volume.  A medium sized mochi (the ones I buy are 110 grams) nestles nicely in the hand, almost like some kind of pet.

Mochi have two parts: outside and inside.  The outside has a strangely rubbery texture, not unlike that of raw chicken.  It tastes blandly sweet, and is dusted with corn starch.  The corn starch adds a bit of starchy sweetness, gives the outside of the mochi a powdery dry texture, and of course gets all over your clothes.

Inside the little dumpling is a blob of red bean paste filling.  The red beans have not been fully blended into oblivion; some bean shapes remain, if you peer closely.  Perhaps you do not want to peer closely.  It is not an entirely appetizing sight, at least not to me.

The filling is sweeter, and also gritty, with the texture left behind by the bean skins.  It is like a sweet kind of chili, if you can imagine such a thing.

Despite being so heavy and solid in the hand, a mochi dissolves quickly in the mouth, and is gone sooner than you would expect.  

There are many different kinds of mochi, but the ones I always make a special point to buy at the Asian grocery store are called "daifuku."  They come in three colors (grayish white, pale green, and a lovely cheerful pink).  As far as I can tell, the colors are the only difference between them.  That doesn't stop me from thinking that the pink ones are best.  Actually that's why I ended up photographing a white one - because I thoughtlessly ate the pink one first before I could take a picture.

Daifuku often startle the first-time nosher.  For some reason they confound our western expectations of what they should be, based on the color and size.  Daifuku aren't nearly as sweet as you will probably be expecting, and their texture seems strange to the western palate.

The daifuku mochi's closest American relative is probably the Snowball.  Imagine a Snowball, except about a third as sweet, and without the coconut coating.  And you're close!  Daifuku are often described as "sweet dumplings," like a dessert hom bow.  Or as a kind of filled marshmallow treat.  These explanations get close to the nature of the daifuku mochi, although not entirely.

My best advice is to buy several daifuku, and don't expect to like them the first time you try them.  I didn't care for them at first, but they did have some interesting qualities so I picked up a few more the next time I was at the Asian store.  And now of course I'm hooked!