Semolina Pilchard

from Wikipedia.org:

Mochi ice cream is a confection made from mochi (pulverized sticky rice) with an ice cream filling.

Originally created by Lotte, a Japanese/Korean confectionery company as Yukimi Daifuku in 1981,[1] mochi ice cream is now an internationally recognized food. Current marketing names include Mikawaya's "Mochi Ice Cream" in the United States (also utilized by other companies), which began production in the United States in 1993.


Mochi ice cream is a spherical finger food varying in diameter, but comparable to a golf ball in size, shape and weight: 45 g mass and 45 mm diameter. For comparison, Mikawaya's brand of mochi ice cream is approximately 42.5 grams in mass. [3]

There are two layers: an outer mochi shell, and inner ice cream core.

Flavors are dependent on brand, however, matcha (ground green tea), chocolate, and vanilla are likely to be represented (flavors of both Mikawaya and Lotte brand mochi ice creams).

Mochi, JoJo and Karly walked over to one of the nearby AutoShaw stations. Mochi had told her two friends all about this mode of transportation, and the three were excited to begin their tour of downtown. It wouldn't take long for one of the RickShaws to appear, and the dispatcher intoned in Mandarin, Japanese, French and English the route and estimated time each 'shaw would take. Mochi hailed down one of the sleeker, newer-looking varieties which was driven by a burly-looking Automaton with a serious yet sympathetic face. The Automatons made some people uneasy, with their almost-but-not-quite resemblance to humans. There had been efforts to make a robot that would be indistinguishable from humans, but these were eventually made illegal under international law due to a number of unfortunate incidents where the life-like automatons were sent in as stand-ins for people.

"Good day, miss. Good day, miss. Good day, sir," greeted the AutoShaw's driver.

"Good Morning. Circle Tour of downtown, please," requested Mochi as the three piled in to the back of the cab.

"Certainly, miss. Would you like the narrated tour or should I be quiet?"

Mochi liked the driver immediately. He had evidently been programmed with a gentle sense of humor and a courteous demeanor, and the 'shaw felt sturdy and secure as it began a gentle glide forward.

"Well, I've been here before, but my friends haven't -- how about if I do the talking and you fill in any gaps that I may have left out?" proposed Mochi.

"Sounds like an excellent plan, miss."

The AutoShaw began to gradually pick up momentum and the three friends heard a soft 'whirrrr' from the hover mechanism. Mochi had strategically placed herself in the middle, the better to observe and thus point out the sights, she told herself; of course, it didn't hurt that she was thus able to be next to Karly. Although he would usually act like the lifelong friend he was, Karly wasn't above flirting with Mochi, and she enjoyed the attention. JoJo was completely oblivious to this, which was probably a good thing for the three of them.

"Can you take us along this river for a while?" asked Mochi. It was a lovely artificial stream, with faux flying fish jumping out every so often, and the gentle burbling sound was so relaxing.

Karly and JoJo were feeding the birds some of the crumbs from their breakfast when Mochi exclaimed, "Did you see that?"

"See what?" asked Karly, sounding somewhat bemused.

"That building. It looked like it was moving there for a second."

"I didn't feel anything," said JoJo.

"I'm not saying there was an earthquake, I know that the rollers pretty much prevent those nowdays, I'm just saying that it looked like the building was moving," explained Mochi. She had the feeling that the other two were giving her funny looks but trying to hide it. Mochi had always had a fanciful imagination and liked to look for anything unusual in the world around her, even back in grey, dull New Chicago.

"How could an entire building move?" Karly asked. "These are some of the tallest and most stable buildings on the planet, and they probably wouldn't even sway in a hurricane. It's not even the slightest bit breezy right now."

"I know," said Mochi, "I'm not saying they were shaking or swaying. It was more like a shimmering."

"What do you mean, shimmering?" asked JoJo.

"It's kind of hard to explain -- look, there it goes again." The three friends looked up at the Banque du Shanghai skyscraper that stood about 100 meters in front of them. Sure enough, the gleaming glass and steel structure was solid -- and then the slightest bit transparent -- and then solid, and repeated this for about ten seconds.

"Huh," was all Karly could say.

"Maybe there one of the sticky buns was fermented too long and we're imagining it," JoJo chimed in.

"No, I feel fine, at least -- come on, we would know if we were high or something -- tell me you didn't see it?" insisted Mochi.

"Let's get on a Rickshaw," offered Karly, wanting to change the subject. The others agreed.

Breakfast was always Mochi's favorite meal, but her favorite meal of all was that of the small appetizers called Dim Sum. These would range from small balls of pastry filled with meat to steamed vegetables to soft cakes of sweet rice and dumplings filled with just about every savory or sweet filling that a creative cook could come up with. At home she would be lucky to find a restaurant with plain bao buns or shu mai, much less custart tarts or pot stickers, but in Shanghai dozens of street vendors offered every kind of Dim Sum known to man and the quality was almost always about the best you could ask for.

Mochi was tired of sitting, first in the jaunt and then in the omnimovers, so she was really glad when she, Karly and JoJo made it to downtown Shanghai. Karly wanted to take some pictures first, since it was his fisrt trip to Shanghai. In fact, he had never been out of the North American Confederation and had spend most of his life within a few miles of downtwon New Chicago. Jo Jo and Mochi were hungry, however, so Karly was overruled and they headed to the business district. Once they got there, they quickly found the carts selling Dim Sum, and they proceeded with ordering

Jo Jo had quite a sweet tooth and went directly to the sweet rice cakes, egg custard tarts, and sweet buns. Karly and Mochi shared some potstickers, bao buns ,shu mai, steamed broccoli and other savory treats before head to the sweets themsleves. The three friends enjoyed the scenery, being smack dab in the middle of some of the tallest builings on earth; however, there was plenty of sunshine due to the buidings' shape and structure. They also enjoyed the rivers and fountains which doltted the landscape.

Every so often, a go-roller would glide by with an almost imperceptible 'whoosh'. "I wish we could just cruise around awhile," said Mochi, wistfully. The three friends weren't going to be in town long enough to take a full round-trip, and besides, this mode of transportation wasn't particularly cheap. Better to take one of the floating Rickshaws pulled by an automaton. These were fun anyway, since the automatons were programmed to be good conversationalists.

The landing was fairly smooth, but Mochi could never quite feel at ease with the way the jaunt seemed to drop out of the sky. The Earth beneath them had zoomed in to view from their lower space vantage point with the inky black surroundings suddenly becoming a landscape below and blue skies around them. Shanghai's many tall buildings stood like a forest on the horizon from the vantage point of the landing pad of the jauntport.

JoJo and Karly were impatient and didn't feel like waiting for one of the landrockets, so it was decided that since the omnishuttle would probably get them to downtown in about the same time they should go that route. Since they were travelling light, with just their backpacks and handbags, they wouldn't have luggage hassles.

The omnishuttles moved on a long track and came at regular intervals, and would take them directly to the city center. Mochi enjoyed looking at the trees and the rivers which ran parallel to the omnishuttle tracks and began to daydream about her prior trips to Shanghai. These had been with her parents, as she had never gone on a mini jaunt-trip with her friends before.

The omnishuttle pulled them closer and closer to their destination.

"Where should we eat?" asked JoJo. "Should we try the outdoor carts?"

"That's what I was thinking," agreed Mochi. The outdoor Dim Sum Carts had delictibles every bit as good as some of the finer Dim Sum Emporiums, and there was the added benefit of being able to sit outside among the plazas and the buildings and the rivers which were like moats around the tall buildings. There had been an architectural renaissance in the past 50 years, with some of both the tallest and most beautiful buildings being found in Shanghai. The downtown area put New Chicago's downtown to shame, with the latter being full of concrete fortresses which stood in sharp contrast to the gleaming glass structures of Shanghai.