The simplest way to describe these is to say that they taste and feel like you’re eating uncooked, sweet chestnut ravioli. Maybe it’s better to say that they taste like what you’d want uncooked, sweet chestnut ravioli to taste like. In this box are 5 small dumplings filled with a small lump of chestnut paste. The dumplings are made of mochi, a dough that’s made of pounded sticky rice. Mochi is most commonly found in ball form, often filled with different pastes. It’s a super stretchy dough and it has a slight rice flavour.

These are a little different than regular mochi because rather than a ball you have a thin layer of mochi. Because the mochi is so much thinner, it lets the flavour and texture of the filling shine a bit more. I also find that the texture is a bit lighter and soft, rather than stretchy like regular mochi balls. This is probably one of the best mochi treats I’ve ever tried, it’s even made me curious about what other kinds of mochi treats are out there.

The problem with these is their availability, I’m pretty sure they’re only available in Kyoto, Japan. These ones are also the smaller version of these Kotabe, which I found on the train station platform in Kyoto station. The regular ones seem to be about twice the size, and I’m not sure how well the ratio of dough to filling would work compared to these awesome little ones. There was just something so nice about the two-bite size, in particular the amount of mochi to filling ratio.