Fuwa Fuwa Japanese Cafe — Restaurant in Greater Strathcona

I wanna start by saying the pancakes are good and delicious. I have wanted to try these pancakes since I heard Fuwa Fuwa was coming to Edmonton and they really were as delicious as they looked.

With that said, our experience was rather disappointing. We went to check it out on a holiday at 8pm. We thought it might be a little less busy. Negative. There was a steady flow of people for the next 2 hours, many of which chose not to stay and wait. Those who ordered their pancakes to go, seemed to have better luck and got their food quicker.

The establishment isn't very big, with a couple of tables on the main floor and a couple upstairs. The kitchen, bar and cashier/order counter are all one large area off to the right when you walk in. In my opinion, this area seemed cramped and was inefficient as a work space. They had about 6-7 people back there and it looked like there wasn't quite enough counter space.

The pricing of the pancakes was about what I would have expected, especially for souffle pancakes with various toppings (ranging from about $12 to $17). It's suggested that you order at the counter before finding a table. They give you a pager/buzzer so you know when to come get your food. Fuwa Fuwa also has some beverages, which I thought were not as decently priced (ex/$6 for a flavored tea that comes in a paper cup). In the end, I ordered the Creme Brulee Pancake and a flavored tea.

The 3 of us found tables and proceeded to wait... and wait... and wait. There are signs by the cash and ordering station that tell you to be patient because the pancakes take about 20 minutes to make, which is fine, but there is also a sign stating wait time for food can be 1-2 HOURS! This sign is for real. I should have took it more seriously. So we got there at 8, ordered by 8:10pm (there was a line and we needed to wait for a table), got our drinks at 8:45ish and the last plate of pancakes came out at 9:15pm. Should also mention that if you order more than one dish, your food will not come out altogether. I think there was about a 20 minute gap between the first pancakes and the last. It was hard to really savour and enjoy the pancakes after waiting so long BUT like I started with, they are good. Also kind of annoying, since the drinks come in a paper cup, my cup felt so flimsy and soggy by the time the food came.

So the short of it is, the pancakes are good but the wait is brutal and some of the drinks...

I've gone here twice since they opened in Edmonton. Once during their soft opening and then a second time after they had their grand opening. The location is quite large with two floors of seating available.

To start these pancakes are made to order, from scratch and typically take 20 minutes to make per order. However, if there are others waiting for their order before you be prepared to wait much longer. If there's absolutely no one else there then you can expect your pancakes to be ready in 20 minutes. The first time we went during soft opening it took us 50 minutes from waiting in line to getting our pancakes at our table ready to eat. Unfortunately, the second time we went we waited closer to an hour and a half. This is definitely not the place to go if you're starving or really hungry and especially not if you're in a rush or have appointments to make!!

The pancakes are super fluffy and moist, and they definitely do jiggle! If you've never tried a souffle pancake before, I highly recommend giving Fuwa Fuwa a try as they're quite different from your typical pancakes. The pancakes typically range from $12-$16 for two pancakes and some toppings, while drinks are around the $5-$7 range. The drinks only have one size.

Service wise we've always had great service from the staff, the managers are always around and are constantly communicating how long the wait for pancakes could be. In terms of the pancakes themselves, we noticed that the second time we came around the Crème Brûlée pancake we ordered had very little custard topping and just a small amount of burnt sugar compared to other people, despite the hour and a half wait. This was a bit disappointing as crème brûlée is actually my favourite flavour from Fuwa Fuwa, and we've tried it from the location in Calgary before.

I really want this business to succeed as I've missed having soufflé pancakes from Japan, and I hope they can get their groove when it comes to making the pancakes consistently! In the mean time if you find the wait is a bit too long maybe give them a try after the hype...

UPDATE: I went back today around 12:00 To try again after thebprevious experience shared below.

I loved it I had the tiramisu pancake and an iced caramel espresso. The espresso was a very smooth and well balanced flavor 👌 The pancake had a great flavor and taste. The presentation was fantastic and it was an all around pleasant experience it's definitely worth coming here to try them out. I will leave the original review attached here because I want people to know the whole story. But the restaurant took care to make sure that it was know that my first experience was not what I would expect coming here. And the staff were phenomenal in taking care of us today. Thank you very much for the make up experience today.

____Original review

went to check this out today. around 1:30pm it was a party of 5 of us.

wait times were rather high but they were transparent about that from the beginning. the style of pancake takes time to make and there were a lot of orders ahead of us. we took a seat and quickly received our drinks. I ordered the caramel iced latte. it was pretty un-noteworthy.

due to the high wait times we were given some complimentary ice cream. (Thank you.)

about an hour later food began to arrive. 3 out of 4 orders were brought up to the table and we were informed an issue in the kitchen would delay the last plate for a bit longer (factoring about 20 minutes cook time for the pancakes we assumed about another 20 minute delay)

we waited another 40 minutes before going back downstairs and seeing other orders being filled and that our last plate still wasn't brought up. So we ended up asking for a refund on the plate and they obliged. Im giving 2 stars instead of 1 because the service was mostly attentive and clearly they were also having a bad day. but this was a pretty terrible experience.

TLDR: Wait: Long! Drinks: Not anything to write home about Food: Couldn't tell you cause I never got any after 2+ hours ( Everyone else seemed to enjoy...