Warabimochi

Still sorting through trip photos. I'm barely done processing shots from the first day, but I've uploaded some more to the Japan trip gallery.

This is one from the first day in Osaka, in a tea house called Bashouan where we stopped for some snacks at Takimikoji Village, a streets-of-old-Osaka recreation in the basement of the Shin Umeda City Building (Umeda Sky Building):



The stone mortar is used for grinding kinako powder from black soybeans, which is then sprinkled over the jelly-like warabimochi before eating. We were apprehensive at first, but the whole self-grinding thing turned out to be pretty fun.

The downside is that the menu didn't have any descriptions in English, so we had to fumble through the ordering by looking at the pictures and guessing. But the end result was quite satisfying! :)