Weird Rice Pudding Question

Some years ago, my wife and I ate at the Ritz in Montreal, and we had "fruit sushi" for dessert. Basically they served beautiful slices of fruit on nigiri-cakes of firm rice pudding, including one "maki" that was a cylinder of rice pudding, topped with a sort of jam custard, and wrapped in a thin nori-like jacket of chocolate. Lovely!

Now I've tried to recreate that, with some success here and there. But the rice pudding defeats me. I just can't seem to get it to have the right kind of sushi-rice-like semi-firm density. Either it falls to bits or it's dense as lead, or occasionally both. I am convinced that they found some way to steam the stuff in an automatic steamer, but I could be wrong.

Any suggestions?

 

What, NO suggestions?