MOCHINUT Tampa
Three piece mochi donut; Matcha Oreo (far left), Choco Graham (middle), Caramel Churro (far right).
Instead of donuts and coffee, it’s mochi donuts and boba. Located in Terrace Oaks Plaza, MOCHINUT includes varieties of foods and desserts like rice flour donuts, fun boba flavors and Korean hot dogs. I decided to travel thirty-four minutes away to the nearest MOCHINUT with the urge to give this place a try.
Walking into MOCHINUT, the atmosphere was very welcoming. The music wasn’t too loud, and the interior of the restaurant had calming pinks and dainty plants that accommodated the charming aesthetic of the place. Despite the atmosphere, there was not too much room to sit inside. The kitchen and display took up more area than the actual seating arrangements inside. Even though there wasn’t much room to stay inside, the wait to get the food and drinks was short, around a five to seven minute wait total.
The staff were extremely sweet and articulate. They handled their orders with genuine care and a smile.
The prices of the mochi donuts were quite expensive. For three donuts, that totaled out to nine dollars. The employees said that this was due to the mochi donuts main ingredient, rice flour. The Korean hot dogs raised in price spending on what you ordered on them. I ordered the notorious Hot Cheeto and Potato hot dog.
They had two kinds of each flavor. One with half cheese and half hot dog or full hot dog vice versa with cheese. The Hot Cheeto dog was around six dollars, and the Potato dog was around six dollars as well.
I wanted to try their boba as well, seeing if I could compare it to my other favored boba places like Midtown Boba or Kung Fu Tea. I ordered the Ube milk boba tea (ube is made from a purple yam). The cost for the boba was average price totaling around six dollars as well.
In total I ordered three donuts, two Korean hot dogs, and a milk tea costing around thirty dollars.
The flavor donuts I got were Matcha Oreo, Caramel Churro, and Choco Graham. Overall, the matcha Oreo had a nice flavor that was not very overpowering in the matcha part. The donuts had an interesting almost marshmallow-like texture. I enjoyed it very much. Although the texture was interesting, the rest of the donuts’ flavors were not as memorable as I expected. The other donuts are what I would depict as “mid” or in other words average. Sadly, this would be the same rating for the hot dogs, especially the potato one. There wasn’t much flavor to them, mostly fried dough. The Hot Cheeto dog had more flavor which I particularly enjoyed but still lacked some flavor. Lastly, the ube boba tea. If you don’t like ube, I suggest you get another milk tea. Personally, I liked the ube milk tea, one of my favorite things I got at MOCHINUT. I liked that I could taste the ube and it wasn’t diluted.
The food was almost enough to where I only needed to try a bite of it for me to see if I liked it or not. Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything to brag about. My family took care of the leftovers, they didn’t seem to mind.
If MOCHINUT was closer, I would probably go there with my friends. Even though it was fun to drive a half an hour away to try, it ended up being more for the experience rather than the taste of the actual food. Therefore, it wasn’t anything great for me to go back that far to get it.
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