“Mochi didn’t require as much sugar and the business evolved because of it,” Hirao says. Up until World War II, the store produced a variety of sticky Japanese candies, but it refocused on mochi due to wartime rationing. He had come to Hawaii from Hiroshima, Japan, to work on a sugar cane plantation, but after a few years, he grew tired of that job and decided that Honolulu needed a store specializing in Japanese desserts. The original store (it’s since moved twice) was opened a century ago by Hirao’s grandfather, Asataro Hirao. Mike Hirao, who took over the business from his father in 2010, is the third generation of his family to be in charge of what is now a 100-year-old Japanese confectionery. There’s monaka, a sweet made of azuki (red bean paste) pressed between pastel-colored mochi wafers shaped like cherry blossoms manjū, a round jewel-toned flour cake stuffed with lima bean paste kinako dango, a cotton candy colored sweet milk mochi covered in roasted soy bean powder and bulbous mochi balls in a cavalcade of colors, just to name a few.
Going inside, however, is like stepping from black and white into a technicolor Oz.īehind a glass case in the 12-by-12-foot room are thousands of vibrantly-hued Japanese candies. Located at the back of a gray, industrial-looking strip mall, the business would be nondescript if it weren’t for the hand-painted sign above the door. There’s a certain cognitive dissonance that comes with walking into Nisshodo Mochiya in Honolulu, Hawaii.