I mentioned back on Jan. 3rd that I'd seen a poster announcing several mochi pounding events in Tenmonkan, but other than the one on Gonza Street, I couldn't find any of the others elsewhere in the shopping complex. Then, I couldn't find the poster again to see what the date was supposed to be. Well, last Friday, I was walking in a part of the center that I normally don't get to, and I finally found that poster. It showed 6 locations, and stated that the date was Jan. 13. After that, I located a couple more posters (which were in the immediate spaces where the poundings were going to be), giving start times of 11 AM or 12 PM, depending on the place.
Again, I was expecting long lines on Sunday, and I didn't have a lot of interest in eating the mochi myself. I just wanted photos for the blog. So, I got out the door a bit before 11 AM on Sunday, and I walked down to Tenmonkan to the big Tenpara movie theater complex. This is one of the spots that has had poundings in the last 2-3 years, and is always my go-to location for checking first. And yes, the shopkeepers in the area had the banners up, and were in the process of pounding a second cake of rice into mochi.
The thing is, there was almost no line, so I got up to the table to get the two regular mochi pieces, one with soy sauce, and the other with kinoko (roasted soy bean powder). They were good.
About two bites' worth, each. And, they're free. A good deal. They also had senzai, a hot sweet red bean soup with smaller pieces of mochi floating in it. But, we had to choose between the soup and the regular mochi pieces, and I didn't want to get greedy, so I just got the tray of two pieces, then kept walking around.
Over at Streetcar Street, in front of KFC, a different group of storekeepers were just setting up their table, and wouldn't be handing out senzai until 12 PM. But, they really liked their posters.
The Yamakataya department store people had two lines, one for the senzai and the other for the mochi trays, and both lines were way too long for me. On the other hand, they also had enough finished mochi cakes to feed a couple hundred people. It was difficult to get close enough to the tables to get photos, so I just took a shot of the crowd, then went over to Lotteria.
The Lotteria group didn't start setting up until about 11:45 AM, so I just sat on a nearby bench and did Sudoku puzzles for half an hour. The group was a bit disorganized, and there was no clear starting point for the lines. Eventually, some really old people began drifting in (maybe from the Yamakataya location a couple blocks away), and they automatically queued up in front of the two tables. I got in line for the mochi as well, and kept waiting.
I never got around to checking how many people were behind me, but it must have been well over 50. I got my tray of one kinoko mochi, and ate that. Again, it was still warm and very filling. But, there was almost no line for the senzai. That table had lots of little paper cups set up, and I figured that my taking one wasn't going to be the same as my taking one away from someone else.
So, I got in the senzai line, and quickly received my cup of sweet red bean soup and small piece of mochi. It's an acquired taste (most Americans that have had it consider it to be too sweet and weird), but I liked it.
I then went back to KFC, where the people there were still handing out bowls of senzai, and I got in line for that as well. This time, the bowls were almost twice the size of the Lotteria cups, and the mochi pieces were a little bigger. As I was eating, I noticed one of the shopkeepers plugging in a pair of ovens, and filling them up with what looked like steamed buns. I checked the schedule next to the table, and it said there would be a "Chuman" (Chinese steamed bread with a meat filling) hand out at 1 PM. It was 12:15 PM at that point, so I pulled out my Sudoku puzzle and finished that off. Again, there was no clear starting point for the line, and I just hung out in front of the KFC building. As we got closer to 1 PM, several older woman began gathering at one side of the sidewalk, and that turned into the head of the line. A little after 1 PM, the shopkeepers started handing out paper-wrapped steamed buns (one per person), and I was maybe #10 in the line. I got my steam bun pretty quickly, thanked the people for the free food, and then headed up to Amu Plaza to see if anything was going on up there, and to do a bit of shopping for the week. It was a good start to the day.
