Mitsuwa’s cherry blossom mochi

Head to Mitsuwa hungry and you’re bound to walk out with a week’s worth of food, pulled in first by the market’s perfect produce then lured back for a second spin by the inevitable impulse buys. On top of all that, there’s a full food court that supplies everything from restaurant-bettering ramen to some of the best bento boxes—there’s even a bookstore for those with appetites that can’t be filled by food alone. But eat a meal at any of the nearby restaurants (Anjin especially) and a trip to Mitsuwa becomes much more limited, your shopping focused down almost exclusively to snacks and desserts. For that, there’s the market’s bakery, which on its best days stocks boxes of sakura daifuku, a cherry blossom mochi ball filled with an azuki bean paste. The dessert is an exercise in contrast: Its pale pink exterior gives way to the dark maroon center, a heavy, palm-sized thing that goes down as lightly as meringue. It’s smooth, too, an easy flavor not far off from that of rose-based desserts, but turned even sweeter by the bean paste. Pick up a pack of four and they’ll be gone long before you even get a chance to tear through the rest of your Mitsuwa haul.

MITSUWA MARKETPLACE 655 PAULARINO AVE | COSTA MESA 92626 | 714.557.6699 | MITSUWA.COM

Tags: costa mesa, dessert, japanese, mitsuwa, mochi