Sylvia Y.
Yelp
Nam Dae Moon is amongst one of the few latest hyped-up must-visits in Richmond's ever changing food scene. Word on the street is they are bringing the infamously delicious Korean rice cakes over from their Toronto location.
To no surprise, hype is hype, one can only expect them to be near sold out of almost everything in the store, the remaining items (a strawberry daifuku & a cute pack of dates+almond nougat) is what we opted for. The forewarn is my expectations for their mocha / mocha-related items are HIGH.
The strawberry daifuku looked adorable, it tasted fresh, made the day of given its incredibly soft outer texture, but did not hold up after a bite in. I'm starting to think the indoor dining restrictions worked in the shop's favour because there is no way this item would/could've been consumer in any clean manner possible - the whole filling basically disintegrates once a puncture is made to the exterior skin, there is little to no structure whatsoever. IMO - a disastrous experience is bound to mask any great flavours that may have otherwise been the highlight of the show.
The dates with nougat is exactly what the name suggest - its is a rather large dried date (jujube), pit removed, and replaced with 3 pieces of whole almonds, and rolled in milk powder. The first bite in resulted to a bug question mark - it's salty? like fairly salted. In my mind, this is a dessert, a sweet snack, nowhere did I think it would be a savoury item, I suspect its from the milk powder alone. There a lot of rough texture in one bite - theres the saltiness of the outer coating, the sharp dried skin of the dates then the crunchy bits of almonds. This is a nice and different offering for sure, though it's definitely a one biter for me, this is not an item I'd make a return trip for.
I'm still hearing & reading great reviews of Nam Dae Moon and their most popular rice cakes - my review currently does not do it justice, it is a mere review of the only remaining items available at my time of visit. I'm keen to update the post once / when I make a second visit.